Tron: Miracle
by ProgramJoseph
Summary: After the events of Tron: Legacy, Quorra, along with Joseph, her new partner, is encouraged to make a difference on the real world by removing all kinds of violence and accidentally uncovers a network of corruption that runs around the Earth.
1. Episode 1: The Birth of a Difference

Quorra... a girl that came from the mysterious digital frontier called "The Grid".

I was at an apartment in Los Angeles when she was sent to me by a secret, low-profile friend, Sam Flynn. He told me to take care of her. He never told me why she could change the world, but there was something different from her. Her extreme, almost irresistible beauty hid something among her, something... so perfect to be human... I just couldn't figure out.

* * *

I talked to Sam Flynn for a while but he had to leave. He went to his motorcycle, and before accelerating he said:

-"…She can change the world. Please, don't lose her, man. Whatever you do, Keep. Her. Alive". Sam said after he formally introduced me to Quorra.

-"I'll do everything, with my life, my friend". I promised Sam.

Sam left on his motorcycle without explaining anything but he told me:

-"All your questions will be answered soon, alright?"

After that, he just left... and Quorra stayed with me. She was exploring my room with curiosity, until I closed the door. She turned to look at me…

-" What's your name?" Quorra asked.

-"Joseph", I answered, "and I think... your name is Quorra".

-"Yes. I bet Sam told you about me already". She said.

-"Yeah. You're an ISO...a ...human ISO". I said, still amazed.

-"...and you're a User... like Sam". Quorra said. "He's like my big brother, you know. I trust him so much".

-"I know". I said. "I wonder… Why did he leave you here?"

-"He told me I wasn't safe out there". Quorra explained. "He said people were looking for me for…experimentation…"

I went close to Quorra and said:

-"I promise I won't let anybody put a hand on you, okay? Feel free to tell me anything you want. Secrets, concerns, worries... anything". I told Quorra. "I will take care of you with my life…"

-"Thank you, Joseph. So much". She smiled.

Over time, Quorra and I became linked with each other.

(3 months later)

Quorra and I were at a park in the morning. I showed her about the world and its beautiful places. We played in the grass, like kids playing tag. Quorra shouting "Tag!" instead of just touching me, she tackled me to the grass, and we rolled down a small hill, laughing, playing tickle wars, it was beautiful. I never saw Quorra full of joy and life. We sat down under a tree, gasping because of the tiring runs and jumps we enjoyed.

-"You tired, man?" Quorra said, gasping.

-"Nah. I'm just… I'm just warming". I gasped.

Quorra laughed at my tiredness, then she lied down on the grass and I did the same later.

-"I can't believe how much beauty a park has in it. The grass, the sunlight...it's amazing, Joseph, it's... I can't describe it. Thank you for bringing me here, Joseph". Quorra gasped.

-"No problem, whenever you want to come to these places, just ask". I said smiling. "…I never took the time to appreciate their nature". I said with regret.

-"Now you did". Quorra responded softly with a smile as she hugged me.

-"Quorra..." I gasped as I caressed her face. "One day, I'll take you to a wonderful grassland. I promise you that".

Quorra looked at me directly in my eyes and asked

-"... really? Would you take me there?" She smiled.

-"I would take you wherever you want". I whispered to her.

Over time, our connection became stronger. We trusted each other like we never did to anybody. We knew EVERYTHING about each other. Blood type, exact height and weight, our tastes, our ideals, we knew each other ALMOST perfectly, but... there was still something in Quorra that I couldn't see.

-"How old are you?" She asked me.

-"I'm 17, and you?" I asked back.

Quorra stayed silent, looking around, probably thinking.

-"Quorra…you don't know your age?" I asked.

-"I can't age. I'm an ISO, remember? Even if I got materialized in the real world, still, I can't age. My cells…they're different than human ones and, they can't degrade with time".

-"So…you're…immortal?" I asked.

-"Truly, I am not sure". She said.

I looked at her, amazed by fact that she could be immortal.

Quorra and I were in my apartment later in that day's afternoon, sitting on my bed.

-"What's your biggest dream in life, Joseph?" Quorra asked.

-"Changing my world. Making something like an Utopia but, we know that perfection is indefinable so, I want something close to it, make a change not only for me, but for humanity". I answered. "..And you?"

-"Discover the world, its secrets, explore its beauty". Quorra said. "I spent some time in the Grid reading Kevin's books about the Earth, and nature and I became… curious about it".

-"Wow. Q." I gasped, then I got close to Quorra and hugged her, whispering "I…I truly promise with all my heart that I will help you on that".

Quorra gave me a gentle kiss on my cheek.

-"I would love to be with you, accomplishing my dream". Quorra said softly.

As Quorra walked around my room, she saw a picture…

-"What's this, Joseph? What's this picture?" Quorra asked as she took a picture of my family.

-"That's my mom, what a woman, she's awesome, she taught me many things about life and love as well as my dad, he taught me more of the "force-requiring" things like, making heavy works, etcetera, Oh, and the art of Improvisation with the environment". I said.

-"Where are they now?" Quorra asked.

-"They're at home, I came here just for some vacationing, you know, relaxing myself, have fun, etcetera.". I explained. "Part of some kind of emotional rehabilitation….thing I made myself, but somehow I decided to stay here even longer. My parents gave me all the time I wanted to stay here as long as I feel better. I felt tense with a lot of things to take care of".

Quorra looked outside the window.

-"I'm sorry if I interfered with your emotional rehab. Truly, I am sorry". Quorra apologized.

-"No! No! Don't be sorry! Actually, you truly make me feel better". I told Quorra.

-"You just say that to make ME feel better". Quorra said as she walked to the door.

-"No! Don't leave! Listen to me, Quorra. If I wanted you to leave already, I wouldn't have gone out to the park with you, I… Quorra please… don't leave".

-"It's okay…I'm not leaving if you say so". Quorra cleared.

-"Listen! What would I do without you? Be here ALONE! Only behind the computer screen doing nothing but…being in Facebook". I said tensely. "If you leave… my emotions will die again. I was a cold-hearted guy without you! …Thinking that love was only a teeny habit… but you proved me wrong, Quorra. For the first time, I loved! I finally felt something different."

I felt so much relief at confessing my feelings for Quorra that was tearing up as I gently held Quorra's face. She looked at me with her eyes wide open.

-"When Sam brought you, I saw something different in you, something, special, unique, beautiful. Quorra, all these months together…" I gasped. "Quorra… I fell in love with you since you crossed this door. I… I'm sorry for telling you this".

-"Why?". Quorra asked.

-"Why do I love you?" I asked back.

-"No. Why do you apologize for such a beautiful confession?" Quorra asked.

-"Because… wh...What?" I asked in confusion.

I had in mind that a girl like Quorra would never take an ordinary guy like me.

-"I had this feeling inside me, tickling every time I was with you, Joseph. You showed me the world, you take care of me every day. You… you truly love me and I … I just.. Can't resist to your… your happiness, your smile, your optimism and realism. When you took me to those places, I knew that you cared about me". Quorra softly said. "Maybe I never had a boyfriend in the Grid, but I read about love, the way It feels… the way it takes over you in a beautiful way and makes you feel… special".

-"Quorra..." I whispered.

I looked at Quorra, about to kiss her, but I interrupted and held her hand.

-"I got an idea. Follow me". I said.

I pulled Quorra gently with me, holding her hand. I took my motorcycle out of the garage and reached the airport. I covered Quorra's eyes as I picked the destination.

When I told one of the employees, he asked:  
-"Is she your girlfriend?"

-"Yes, sir, indeed she is". I responded formally.

-"Give her the surprise of her life". The employee smiled as he gave me the ticket.

We went into the plane and of course, I did took into account that they mention the destination's name about 5 times, so, I told Quorra to cover her ears with some small pieces of cotton, however I did remove the cloth from her eyes.  
She looked at the clouds as we traveled for about 5 hours and turned to look at me several times during the flight.

-"I never thought clouds would seem beautiful. In the Grid, they were all grey, dark… they gave the Grid a very sad feeling". Quorra said.

-"Yeah. Sometimes it gets cloudy here, though" I said.

-"But, come on, it doesn't look bad". Quorra said.

After hours, we arrived to the destination. I covered Quorra's eyes and guided her around with me. Everything seemed so green, Grass growing, flowers all around, trees…it all seemed like a fairytale, the villages, and houses… it was beautiful. Soon, we reached a grass field, with hills around us.

We stopped walking and I gently took the cloth from Quorra's eyes.

-"Welcome to Ireland". I whispered.

Quorra seemed amazed, delighted. The face she had at that moment was priceless. Her eyes were full of tears while she had a bright smile, looking at the grassland.

-"Oh…my! Joseph! You… this is beautiful! I can't believe you brought me here!". Quorra said with a huge smile. "I never saw anything like this in… my whole life".

Quorra got close to me. I slowly got closer to her...

-"Quorra, Have you ever kissed somebody in or outside the Grid?" I whispered to her.

-"I never did". She whispered back. "I read about it… they say it feels… unexplainably beautiful. _'Love of man for woman, love of woman for man. That's the nature, the meaning, the best of life… itself'_, Zane Grey". Quorra quoted with a smile.

And then… I slowly… passionately kissed her.

I felt a warm current running down my spine as I felt her hands wrapped on my neck,…her body heat with mine… I felt relief, happiness, extreme euphoria, so much that I couldn't hold back my tears. I was tearing with joy. I never felt such happiness in my entire life…I felt something different: True love.

-"I love you, Joseph". Quorra whispered.

We spent almost a day together in the grassland, and at night we were walking back to a nearby hotel I previously paid for. Quorra and I slept on the same bed; I hugged her and kissed her goodnight.

However, that night, the TV woke Quorra up. A show called "World's most vicious videos", which was about violent encounters between mobs, people, random riots gone very violent and etcetera, however, the program had some censored parts and Quorra's curiosity drove her to look for the raw videos herself. She took my laptop and browsed on a video sharing site and what she saw... was probably the most terrifying thing she had seen since The Purge that occurred to her and her fellow ISO friends at The Grid.

The first video caught a guy chopping another guy's leg out of anger at a liberal protest.

Another video caught a shooting, full.

The next one was about wars and the most gruesome scenes during them, including World War II, the Vietnam War, The Armenian Genocide, and the most recent, The Afghanistan War.

Video after video, Quorra's eyes were tearing, and the last video impacted her. The execution of a prisoner… fully caught with detail. The prisoner's head was cut with an axe… Quorra's tears were running all over her cheeks, she came to me on my sleep and woke me up, crying.

-"Baby, What's wrong? What happened?" I asked.

-"Why? Why do people kill each other? Why do they kill their own race!"Quorra asked, breathless after crying, sobbing.

I realized that she watched the videos as I saw the laptop on a small table with the video of a vicious conflict.

-"Quorra…wars are since the beginnings of time". I said.

-"I know that but I…" Quorra said, altered, "I am tired of looking at programs killing each other. I thought it was different with the Users, but it's the same"

-"It's in human nature, Quorra. It drove them to corruption, desire for power; desire to fulfill their joy for spilling blood", I explained, "but not all humans are like that. Those who aren't blinded by power know how to suppress that desire without having to think about doing so".

-"I know. Just like in the Grid. Those who didn't believe in Users suddenly attacked those who did. Here, it is the same thing but with different…contexts". Quorra said. "Good thing Kevin Flynn brought his books to the Grid, sharing his knowledge of the real world with me".

-"Quorra…" I whispered.

-"I have to show you something". She said.

Quorra took her sleeping shirt off.

-"Whoa…" I moaned as my face blushed.

Then she turned and showed me her back. She had a huge scar coming from behind her left shoulder and going all the way down to her hips.

-"How did you got that huge scar?". I gasped.

-"A surgery. Joseph, I performed a human augmentation on myself", Quorra explained, "When I read about wars and violence in your world, I knew I had to be ready, However, I never thought I would see this levels of mortality and hate among your own race. They're over the top".

-"But… a surgery, by yourself?" I asked.

-"I'm an ISO, remember? I programmed a surgical machine that I could control while being sedated. They're still not massively produced but, I got access to one". Quorra explained.

I touched Quorra's scar.

-"TSS! Ow!"

-"Oh!… I'm Sorry! Sorry!" I apologized.

Quorra laughed at my apologies.

-"Don't worry, I faked the pain". Quorra laughed, then changing into a more serious tone, "Though, I did the augmentation a year or two ago".

-"You scared me...hahahah!" I said with relief.

-"I know, I know". Quorra replied with gratification and smiled.

We were in a very intimate moment, looking at each other, in the middle of the dark room. Quorra managed to turn the TV and laptop off; however, she took my clothes off as I took hers off too, then she turned on a candle and said:

-"I want to keep looking at your eyes" She whispered. "Stay with me".

We lived the most intimate moment of our lives together, making love. I had never understood the beauty of "two bodies becoming one, together", until that night with Quorra. Nothing compared to what any typical hormone-ruled teen says. This was…true love, pure love, manifesting itself… so beautiful. I felt Quorra all over me, her body heat mixing with mine as she kissed me and… I kissed her back. She caressed my hair; her lips caressed mine…What a beautiful experience shared with my love.

I was afraid to impregnate Quorra... I did not know if an ISO would survive after giving birth to a child. I acknowledged that they were stronger and smarter than regular humans on Earth but I didn't want to risk Quorra. I did use protection, for her safety.

-"Joseph, can I tell you something?" Quorra asked.

-"Sure, tell me". I said.

-"I don't want to have a baby yet. I want to have him, or her, when our world becomes a safer place". Quorra said with concern.

-"We'll have the baby when this world is cleaned". I said softly.

After that beautiful intimate night, we fell asleep.

…But I woke up an hour later, still nighttime. I remembered about Quorra's scar. I lifted the blanket up enough to see it with detail,then I thought about what she said, how humans were killing each other, human nature, my race..my own brothers sinking this planet...then I decided to do it. I decided to perform an augmentation on myself.

I went back to sleep, hugging Quorra.

In the morning…

When Quorra woke up, I was looking outside the window.

-"Joseph?". She asked.

-"Quorra… I need the augmentation". I said, directly going to the point. "We have to change this world".

-"What? We can change it the way you are, no matter what, we will change it, with augmentations or not". Quorra said.

-"Quorra… please. I want to join you. I want to change the world with you". I told her.

(3 hours later)

Quorra took me to the laboratories where she performed the augmentation, a huge basement below the installations of ENCOM at downtown Los Angeles. The building was in some state of hibernation due to Sam Flynn's hiding after he was being stalked by scientists who wanted Quorra for experiments.

-"Here is where I it all began", Quorra said, "…My ambition to change the world, what Kevin Flynn explained to me. ISO's can possess great quantities of knowledge. No offense, you humans contain tons of information in you but…your nature… it is what you can't control".

The basement was cleaner than I expected…It seemed more like a facility…a facility in heaven. There was a very odd bed in the middle, which was actually for surgery purposes and above it, there were mechanical arms used for applying substances or any parts needed in an augmentation. Below the bed, hidden, there were many sensors: Heat, movement (calculating even the slightest movement of any small or big internal organ or tissue, brain activity, body substances, etcetera). There were roses lying on the top of it. In the middle, there was a strange blue-glowing hexagon, and a white-glowing circle on the pillow.

However, I lied on the bed and blue circuitry began turning on the bed and the floor around it.

-"Joseph… your life will change after this. Make me a promise. Use these enhancements for the world's benefits… promise me that". Quorra said, with her eyes tearing.

-"I promise you that, with all my heart. I solemnly promise that I will not use these augmentations for selfish desires". I said.

Quorra smiled. I wiped her tears gently off her cheeks.

-"What will you tell your parents?". Quorra asked.

-"…The truth. They won't reveal it, I am sure". I said as I looked at Quorra's eyes before the moment…before the augmentation.

She took my clothes off to begin and before activating the surgical bed, she kissed me and held my hand.

-"I love you so much, Joseph. Make me a favor and…don't. EVER. Change". She said, crying.

Quorra activated the bed and injected sedatives in me, making me fall asleep. She controlled the bed but also intervened physically into the surgery. My body was being opened carefully. Nanotechnology was used with the implants.

My arms and legs were enhanced by replacing the limbs for stronger ones. My skin was covered by an unnoticeable over skin attached to my original one, protecting it, and regenerating when it became damaged by replacing dead cells with new cells taken from an area in the body where cells were not necessary or fundamental. However if I became damaged repeatedly, it could experience failures due to its best performance with ISO skins.

My eyes weren't removed but my vision was extremely enhanced with chemicals and a few replacements for my optical tissues.

A chemical applied to my brain enhanced the pulses for faster reactions and reflexes as well as logical thinking.

Also, some utility enhancements were applied to me such as a retractable blade on my hands and feet used to climb or fight.

Quorra also managed to bring the identity discs out of the Grid. They could be thrown towards an enemy and their trajectory could be defined by the owner's mind, however, Quorra decided to omit the information storing utility the discs had in the Grid to avoid information theft that could endanger lives. More weapons such as the sword were materialized and new ones such as the lightleash and plasma lightshield were materialized from the Grid as well. Also, Lightcycles, lightjets, tanks and new designs by Quorra herself such as the lightchopper were materialized into the real world using Kevin Flynn's laser.  
Quorra also enhanced my body so I could be able to control the weapons and vehicles brought from the Grid.

(5 hours later)

My heart stopped…I flatlined…

-"Joseph? No… no! Joseph, stay with me!" Quorra exclaimed.

She defibrillated me twice with no result and dropped the defib unit, hopelessly staring at me.

Suddenly, my heart went back up to its normal state.

-"You're okay!... Thank God". Quorra hugged me.

I looked around, and felt quite a bit different. Outside me, I was the same, but inside, I was augmented.

-"Quorra…am I ready?" I asked.

-"More than that". She said.

I placed my clothes on and tested the augmentations.

My arms were somehow lighter, but stronger. My legs felt the same. I walked faster than normal, and about my eyes… I could see the world with full detail.

-"Put on your lightsuit". Quorra ordered.

-"Where is it?" I asked.

-"Think about it on you, and you'll know". She said.

I closed my eyes and thought about the lightsuit on me, suddenly it began to morph around my body, like another skin, and then blue circuitry began to run around my body. Quorra closed her eyes and her lightsuit morphed over her, regardless of her clothes. They just disappeared when the suit morphed.

-"We are changing this world… we are changing the future". Quorra said softly.  
Quorra threw me a baton and I caught it.

-"They cannot consume our world". Quorra said with a gentle smile as she handed me my own identity disc. "They cannot destroy our dreams".

Quorra and I spent hours of training at a testing chamber, slowly getting me adapted to the augmentations. I could jump higher, perform acrobatic stunts, and even become stealthy.

The circuits in the lightsuits could be turned off when mentally requested by the user, usually in stealth operations.

Quorra and I went into a "practice mission", a gang beating up a group of teens on a street; the police was taking action but couldn't control the situation completely.

We were watching from a building's rooftop.

-"Here's the plan. We'll try to fend off the gangsters. The police might try to attack us as we are taking action by ourselves. Use shields and if necessary, kill them". Quorra advised.

We jumped down and suddenly the gangsters threw rocks, knives, Molotov and frag grenades to us. We used our lightshields to protect ourselves. When they ran out of weapons, they came towards us, like a fierce wave. We had no other choice. They were a threat to humanity.

Quorra and I took our lightdiscs and neutralized them, one by one.

After a tough fight, the gangsters were all around the floor…dead.  
Police forces aimed their guns at us.

-"Put your weapons down!" An officer demanded.

Quorra stood frozen…

-"We don't want to hurt you, people!". I said.

-"Again, Put. Your weapons. Down!" The officer demanded again, ignoring my words.

-"Quorra…" I whispered.

She closed her eyes. An officer shot Quorra, striking her shoulder.

-"Quorra!" I screamed on top of lungs, panicked.

She touched the wound carefully, but it seemed like if it had not pierced her skin, like a very superficial wound.

-"It works". She said.

I threw my disc to the officer in retaliation, slicing half his face, taking him down. I grabbed the disc as it came back to me.

-"Oh boy..." I gasped.

-"Damn! we better get moving!" Quorra exclaimed.

More police forces converged to our position. We used our lightdiscs and shields to block the bullets.

The teenage boy and girl who we saved were inside an apartment taking cover. Quorra turned around to look at them and said:

-"Stay safe".

Quorra and I escaped in our lightcycles and some police units followed us.

-"Why can't they leave us alone?" Quorra asked.

-"They reject anything different, any anomaly" I said.

I saw a gun shop and thought about taking a rifle. I deactivated my lightcycle.

-"Joseph, what are you doing?" Quorra asked, confused.

-"I'm getting some help!" I said.

-"I have a lot of those rifles back at the lab!". Quorra exclaimed. "Never mind".  
I got in the gun shop.

-"I need a weapon". I said.

The clerk got scared with my outfit and was about to fire a rifle at me, but I cleverly aimed it away from me and took it away from him.

-"I promise I'll pay for them later!" I exclaimed as I went out of the store with two rifles equipped with holographic sights.

I handed one of the rifles to Quorra, and we went back on the road with our lightcycles.

Meanwhile in a secret government laboratory, known as AsterGen Labs publicly by the people, (who thought they were an ordinary pharmaceutics company), the scientists became aware of Quorra's presence. They were looking for her since the first time she was seen.

Quorra and I were riding on our lightcycles when a van came across the way, there were SWAT-like teams with gas masks aiming guns at us.

-"You are the first ISO in our Earth, if I'm not mistaken!" A scientist said. "Let me introduce myself, I am Doctor Stafford, leader of… let's say... a corporation… interested in your genetic composition".

-"What do you want from me?" Quorra asked with desperation.

-"Your DNA, your information, your data… everything" The scientist said with desire.

Quorra knew they were the scientists that were looking for her. She was about to kill them but instead, she placed her lightdisc away and walked towards them…

-"…Wait…you're going!" I asked.

-"Joseph… I have to. I have to stop him already… I'll be fine, I promise". Quorra said in a soft voice.

I tried to pull her back but one of the guards punched me. I noticed a few letters in his shoulder as he turned away: AsterGen.

That gave me a clue, of where Quorra was being held.

Quorra stepped in the van…and they took her.

I kneeled helplessly…looking at the van leaving with her. I couldn't follow it… I could risk Quorra's life by doing so, making the scientists locking her up in a more difficult place to find for me and colder, more harmful place for her.

The police later arrived, about to capture me but I escaped in my lightcycle.

I went to Quorra's lab below the ENCOM building…looking at the surgical bed…remembering the moments we passed together… I was facing the possibility of losing her…forever. I saw the flight tickets to Ireland. Quorra had kept them in her lab to remember that beautiful moment of our first kiss.

I couldn't hold the tears…

-"Why do you take her AWAY FROM ME!" I screamed.

I accidentally punched a wall that sounded somehow… hollow. It was a secret armory, where Quorra held all kinds of rifles not sold in the market, apparently, they were more technologically advanced. They had holographic sights, yet more advanced than regular ones, highlighting targets, bullets able to pierce walls like paper, and a handler with a retractable blade included in all the guns.

I equipped myself with grenades, 2 rifles and 2 pistols, a grappling hook, my light disc, a lightsword and I also took Quorra's new vehicle: The lightchopper as well as another baton for the lightcycle.

-"Hang on, Quorra". I whispered. "I'm going for you".

I rode my lightcycle, navigating until I found the AsterGen lab, a tall building in downtown Los Angeles.

I stepped off the lightcycle and placed the baton away.

-"Hang in there, baby, I'm coming". I said.

I was enraged…extremely mad at everyone in the entire building, especially with that Doctor Stafford. I threw a grenade at the door, making it explode, alarming the guards and everyone in the building. I threw my lightdisc inside, slicing and neutralizing many of the people inside.

I stepped in, and saw a scientist crawling on the floor.

-"Do you have a family?" I asked him in a threatening tone.

-"Yes, sir… w-why?" He asked with fear.

-"Take me to the ISO, Quorra, or I'll send your head to your wife,". I threatened him with my lightdisc.

Later, the scientist guided me to Quorra. According to the scientist, she was being held in a large cryo-room on the highest floor.

I neutralized waves of incoming guards using my guns, firing with no mercy at them.

-"I…want…my…love…BACK!". I shouted in extreme anger as I killed the guards.

Meanwhile, Quorra looked at me in the monitors from the cryo-room where she was in a water-filled tube and an oxygen supply. 2 guards and a scientist were holding her captive. She bashed the crystal from the cryo-tube.

-"Hey! Hey! Stop it! Those are worth a lot of money!" The scientist complained.

Quorra received an electric shock, yet she still bashed the cryo-tube until she cracked it, then the water pressure broke it open. She landed over the scientist, punching him once and knocking him out.

-"Not so tough, aren't 'cha!". Quorra teased.

The two guards tried to capture her again, but she managed to disarm one of them, and use him as a shield, killing the guard she used a shield by covering herself from the other guard's shots and then firing at the attacking guard.

I kept walking to the cryo-room, killing guards. One of them tried to tase me, but I grabbed the taser's wire without being affected as my second skin absorbed the shock, I pulled the taser towards me and shocked the guard, then kicking his head for a knock-out.

Finally, before reaching the room, I found Quorra fighting off 5 guards herself after she retrieved her lightdisc and other.

-"There she is!". The scientist guide exclaimed.

-"Thanks". I said. "Take good care of your family. I advised him

The scientist ran away.

I intervened with my lightsword, slicing the guards one by one, helping Quorra.  
Finally, we were alone in the cryo-room.

-"Quorra…" I gasped as I hugged her tightly.

-"Joseph!" She gasped. "You came back for me".

-"I guess… you kind of had the situation under control". I joked.

-"Hey! The princess wanted to fight the dragon to help her prince". She said.  
I smiled and told her.

-"You truly know how to help a prince, then". I whispered.

I kissed Quorra gently, her lips touching mine…Oh I truly missed her soft lips on mine, her beautiful kisses.

Many AsterGen guards were converging near the cryo-room.

-"Here, take the rifle". I told Quorra as I handed her a rifle.

We prepared for survival.

-"Here they come". Quorra said.

I got closer to the door.

-"Joseph? Are you out of your mind?". Quorra exclaimed.

-"A little bit". I joked.

I opened the door a little bit and threw a grenade at the guards, killing almost all of them.

-"Quorra…we're blowing this place up". I said.

We both ran out of the cryo-room, attempting to find Doctor Stafford.

-"Where is he? Come on…come on". I insistently kept searching.

We searched non-stop around the building, until we found him in one of the offices.

-"Ah, the boy who tried to ruin my research. Don't you know what you just ruined? Immortality! The cure against cancer! The cure against many sicknesses!". The doctor exclaimed.

-"By harming a girl?" I exclaimed with anger.

-"A girl? She's no girl! She's an ISO!". The doctor shallowly answered.

-"What?". Quorra whispered with sadness.

-"THAT ISO HAS FEELINGS! THAT ISO SHOWED ME HOW TRUE LOVE FEELS!" I exclaimed, enraged.

I bashed the doctor's face with my bare fist and he fell, then he pulled a gun and fired at my chest-

-"Ack….agh…" I choked… he had wounded me. His weapon's bullet was hard enough to pierce through the second skin. I felt a huge pain and fell down.

-"Joseph!" Quorra exclaimed, her eyes tearing.

She was about to hold me but Stafford punched her on the face, fending her away.  
-"You're mine now, ISO". Stafford said, with a greedy smile.

Quorra took her lightdisc and blocked Stafford's shots, but Stafford did not stopped and lunged towards her, placing his hand on her neck, choking her.

-"Alive or dead, you're still useful". He whispered with evil.

I stood up… apparently the wound did pierce my real skin, yet it didn't touch any vital organ, nor made it into my flesh completely. I extracted it with my hands, and kept walking towards Stafford.

I activated my lightsword and stabbed Stafford right on his chest, piercing his heart.

-"She's not only an ISO… she is The Miracle". I told to Stafford.

I pulled him back away from Quorra, and then I pushed him to a window, breaking it and making him fall down his own building.

-"You alright, Joseph?" Quorra asked, with concern.

-"I'm alright, just a little pierce". I said. "I got the bullet out".

Quorra hugged me.

-"Can we go home now?" She whispered.

-"Sure". I whispered back. "Let's just erase this place from the map. Grab my shoulders".

Quorra and I jumped from the building; I took a baton and opened it, rezzing a lightchopper, and then fired at the AsterGen building, destroying it little by little, firing missiles and bullets, aiming at the upper then the base floor.  
I saw the building crumbling, losing its balance from the first floor's support, then, it fell, luckily there were no civilian casualties.

Quorra and I flew to a rooftop, deactivating the light-chopper.

-"What a ride...woo!". She laughed.

-"Well that was one hell of a dragon! I'll surely need a nap…with my rescued princess". I flirted.

Quorra giggled.

…and walked back home without attracting too much attention.

(At home)

Quorra sleeping on our bed…I was outside, looking at the horizon from the balcony, then I saw a dark figure behind me and he said:

-"Good work. I saw what you did". He said.

-"Sam". I gasped.

-"Joseph. All these months…". Sam said.

-"I'm sorry about what almost happened to Quorra". I apologized.

-"You said it yourself: 'Almost'", Sam said. "It's not about what almost happened; it's about what is happening, and what really happened. You saved her… you took care of her all these time, you even showed her how love feels".

-"…yeah, I love her with all my heart". I said. "I guess she'll go back with you".

-"No, Joseph, she won't". Sam said, laughing gently.

-"What do you mean?" I asked, curiously.

-"She found who she was destined to be with, man. You". Sam stated.

-"…but you..." I was interrupted by Sam.

-"She's like my sister…not my girlfriend. I will still keep an eye on her sometimes... for her own good, don't tell her though, but you are her guy". Sam explained.

-"Thanks Sam. I promise I will protect her with my life". I said.

-"Sure you will. I truly know that". Sam said as he shook my shoulder.

-"I have to go now, man. You know where to find me if you need help". Sam said as he climbed down the apartment's ladder and got on his motorcycle.

-"Where?" I asked.

-"Flynn's Arcade if you want!" He said. "Come over for some Space Paranoids!"

-"My favorite". I whispered.

I went back into the apartment, with Quorra.

-"Joseph? Everything okay?". She asked.

-"Yeah. Perfectly". I whispered.

(The next day)

Quorra and I were standing over the L.A.X. control tower's roof, looking at the horizon.

-"We're not done yet, right?" I asked.

-"No…we're just beginning the change". Quorra said softly.

-"Where's our next destiny? Afghanistan? Russia? Somalia?" I asked.

-"All of them, and wherever the world needs us". Quorra said as she looked to a plane flying up.


	2. Episode 2: Desires

After having neutralized our first enemy, Dr. Stafford and his AsterGen Corporation, who wanted to capture Quorra, we knew what the government was up to by trying to get to Sam: Obtaining the Grid itself. Quorra recalled having asked Sam about the microchip around his neck, he said it was The Grid. He wanted to keep it away from the hands of humanity, as a secret. Neither ENCOM nor the government had known that The Grid wielded so many secrets as Kevin and Sam saw, and now, something bigger than the CIA is after it.

(At an underground facility, where a secret government group of Proxy soldiers called the "Umbra Proxima" gathered for plans)

Their leader, known as Evron Nacht, summoned a group of about 30 Proxy soldiers to a conference.

-"We have been assigned into many operations before this, gentlemen. The Cold War, remember? Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis…". Nacht recalled. "Now, we are facing a new mission, not a threat, but this will revolutionize the world as we know it… This will benefit our lives for a long time. This, gentlemen, is: The Grid".

Evron projected an image of the world inside the Grid.

-"This is what was among us for a long time. Re-programmed by ENCOM's ex-CEO Kevin Flynn decades ago. However, there are secrets within it, and it is proven that things can be extracted from that digital world into ours. We can create anything inside it, and bring it out to our world".

Evron changed the image into a picture of Quorra, describing her as "The ISO".

-"An Isomorphic Algorithm. A complex and sudden manifestation of life inside the Grid. According to research, the last ISO is here, on our planet. We could focus on getting the Grid first, then capturing the ISO, or vice-versa. What do you suggest?" He asked.

The soldiers were thinking, and then they began making suggestions.

-"The Grid should be taken as first priority as I believe it is well-placed in custody while the ISO's case is the same yet it is an individual that we could capture in just a while". One of the soldiers suggested.

Nacht stopped to think about his soldier's suggestion.

-"I believe that is truly logic. We should focus on taking over the Grid. It was last downloaded from Flynn's Arcade into a microchip. We traced its position, leading us into Kevin's son: Sam Flynn".

Back to the surface world, I enlisted Quorra into a high school where I told my parents I would stay on. They somehow agreed and sent me a very fair amount of money. However, there were some small problems with her documents because well… she wasn't born in our world, yet she managed to perfectly forge some documents to receive her admission.

First day of school, ah fresh start. Quorra and I were the new guys, nothing out of the usual stuff except that most of the guys seemed to have developed a crush on Quorra, yet she never accepted their "invites", and felt weird when they stared at her. To be honest, I didn't thought she would look at it as something weird, since, she doesn't know about their exact intentions but, I think she knows humans more than what I thought.

-"Joseph… they keep staring at me". Quorra said with a very uncomfortable expression.

-"Looks like they got a crush on you". I explained "You know, they like you, they want to be your boyfriends and… yeah".

-"But I'm already with you". Quorra laughed. "I think they'll miss me".

-"That's my baby". I said as I hugged her. "I love you so much".

We walked into our first class…Chemistry, and from there, things started to get interesting. Quorra was definitely, with no doubt, the SMARTEST one in the whole school. She even annoyed one of the teachers by correcting her a lot of times.

-"Miss. Quorra, would you please let me explain my point? … or would you rather explain it?" The chemistry teacher asked, annoyed.

Quorra didn't know that she was mad at her, so she accepted her offer.

-"Sure, I'll do it". Quorra said with a smile.

She amazed EVERYONE in the class, explaining with perfection everything about hydrocarbons, the way they link, their properties, derivations, and many more things about the topic… even answering questions from the class.

When the class was over, the chemistry teacher stopped to talk to her.

-"Wow, Quorra, I am truly impressed by what you did". The teacher said. "…truly! I am impressed! You totally knew about the topic in detail and still knew how to explain it to the whole class!"

-"Thank you". Quorra giggled. "I… I just explained everything I could, it's nothing, really".

-"Quorra, if you need any help from us, we'll be glad to aid you in any way and… I hope I can also count with your help". The teacher said, smiling at her "prodigy student".

-"Sure, no problem Mrs..…" Quorra stopped, having forgotten the teacher's name.

-"Callahan" The teacher cleared.

-"Mrs. Callahan" Quorra repeated with a smile

They shook hands and Quorra walked out.

Meanwhile, I was outside, waiting for Quorra, and suddenly a group of guys walked closer and then surrounded me.

-"Hey, is the hot, short-haired girl your girlfriend?" One of them asked, smirking.

-"…Yeah, why?" I asked back.

Suddenly, the tallest one of them punched me in the face.

-"Why was that for?" I asked with anger.

The tallest guy took a knife and pointed it at me. I could fight him but that would mean revealing the secret of my augmentations. I had to keep a low profile.

-"Hello retard! My name is Steve and now your girl is mine. Here's how it works you little crap, I get the hot girls and you get the fuck out of my way, or… do you want this sharp knife inside your chest, cutting your flesh?" The bully threatened me.

-"Steve, come on man, I don't think the knife is necessary". One of his accomplices said.

-"Didn't you saw that girl, man?" Steve asked. "Her legs, her curves, and her…Geez, man you should have seen her! She's totally worth a kill!"

I looked up to the bully straight to his eyes and told him:

-"Splitting me from Quorra is impossible. I love her… I will not leave her… not even if you kill me, you useless fucking scum. You can torture me all you want, but losing Quorra is worth a million times more than my own life".

Quorra stepped out to the school's yard and saw me confronting the bullies.

-"Joseph?"

I decided to ignore my augmentations and fight my way out, no matter if I got discovered. I just wanted Quorra to be safe.

-"You will only get her over my rotten flesh!" I screamed as I released myself from the bullies, pulling my arms forward and sending them flying away from me.

Steve swinged his knife against me but I stopped his hand, twitching it until he released the knife and then I punched him on the face, breaking a small part of his cheekbone.

Quorra and I fought the other bullies, dodging their fists and jumping over them, then punching them on their faces, and kicking them off their feet. She fought them all down, then she found herself confronting Steve.

-"You're mine… baby, you're mine". Steve said, grinning with lust.

-"You better don't think about it… I got a boyfriend". Quorra warned.

Steve tried to get closer to her, but she slapped him with huge force, making him fall to the ground.

-"Strong, I like that". Steve said, with a lustful look on his face.

-"Joseph! Need a hand over here!" Quorra exclaimed.

I punched the last bully, and then went to aid Quorra.

Steve stood up…

-"Come on… just let yourself into me". Steve softly said, trying to incite Quorra into loving him.

Quorra attacked him by kicking his face and legs, making him fall to the ground again, but he still persisted, standing up once more.

-"You stubborn hormone-ruled animal!" Quorra exclaimed with anger, punching Steve once more on his face, making him back away and fall.

-"I got it". I said.

I pulled Steve away from Quorra, and then I punched him down.

-"Here are the rules you freaking pile of scum! You DO NOT touch Quorra, you DO NOT mess with Quorra, and most of all, you DO NOT try to split me away from Quorra!" I shouted with anger as I punched his face one last time with a great amount of strength, breaking his cheekbone and knocking him out.

I hugged Quorra, comforting her.

-"You okay, baby?" I asked.

-"I'm alright". She softly confirmed, hugging me back.

A school security guard approached us with a taser. We realized we had attracted quite a lot of attention when we saw a crowd of students looking at us. They cheered at our victory.

-"We were never here, bro". I told the security guard.

Quorra and I ran towards the crowd of students, blending in with other groups of unaware people.

After Math class, the second one in our schedule, Quorra and I explored the campus, walking and talking about how it felt being in school… for Quorra, it was somehow fun and also, classes were easy for her…pretty much because she had read TONS of books during her times in the Grid.

-"You're one awesome nerd you know that?" I said, smiling.

-"Really?" Quorra giggled. "I'm not that of a nerd, I just read a lot of books".

-"How many?" I asked curiously.

-"I don't know, about fifty or more" She said with a thinking face.

-"Geez! I…I can't even finish a book in one day!" I said, amused.

-"I just do it because I love reading" She said. "You should try reading a book by Jules Verne one day, he's my favorite. I've also read books from Isaac Asimov, James Burke, and Forrest Ackerman. I don't have any dislike for any kinds of books, I just love reading, but I do love certain writers more than others… ahh Verne, he's just… awesome".

-"I better start reading some more, I'm feeling like an ignorant". I said.

-"Oh no no! You're not ignorant! Actually, you know about this world more than I do". She said, trying to comfort me.

-"Aw Quorra… thank you". I smiled.

Suddenly at a lonely part of the campus, we saw a group of three guys kicking… something; we just couldn't see what it was… until I saw a leg sticking out of the group. It was a defenseless guy being kicked mercilessly by a group of bullies… laughing at his pain…even with his shirt covered in blood they did not felt any regret.

-"Why are they kicking him! Joseph!" Quorra asked, shocked by the violent scene.

I began remembering a few things about my past… I was also bullied, and I couldn't let that happen to someone else… If we want to change this world, we have to do it by ourselves.

-"You bastards! Get away from him!" I shouted at the bullies.

-"Joseph! Hold on! We might get discovered!" Quorra warned.

-"They already saw who we really are!" I said. "Quorra… please, maybe this is not as big as those scientists back at AsterGen, but every single life counts".

Quorra hesitated…then she said in agreement:

-"…You take the one on the left".

-"Yes, Madame". I smiled.

We both ran towards the bullies, I pulled one of them away and punched the other one on his face while Quorra grabbed the third one from his neck.

-"Gotcha!" I exclaimed with anger, and then I threw them forward. One of them stood up to fight me. I dodged his fists and punched him back on the face, making him back off. He tried to grab my neck but I hit his hand before it reached me, then I punched him back, spilling a little amount of his blood and knocking him out.

Quorra finished off the third bully, punching him on the belly, and then hitting him twice on the face. She placed her foot on his faced and kicked him back spilling some blood and making him fall.

Then we went to help the victim. He seemed… he didn't move… he seemed…dead.

-"Dude? Wake up, bro… come on" Quorra said, trying to wake up the wounded student.

-"No…no, no no no no! Fuck!" I shouted on top of lungs.

I picked up one of the bullies by the shirt.

-"SEE WHAT YOU DID TO HIM! COME ON! LOOK AT HIM!" I ordered with anger, forcing the bully's head into looking at his victim.

-"Let me go, man!" The bully demanded.

-"You looked at his blood being spilled, and you didn't even felt sorry! You fucking smiled at his pain! YOU SAVAGE PIECE OF…GAAAAAH!" I screamed as I punched the bully on the face.

I threw him to the floor and kept punching him… I punched him harder and harder… I couldn't hold back the tears from my anger, and then Quorra grabbed my arms and pulled them back, stopping my fists from punching him once more. I kept screaming things at him with a snarling face.

-"Joseph! Joseph! … baby look at me, come on… look at me". Quorra softly said. "It's over… it's okay now. It's okay".

I placed my hand over the back of her head, caressing her hair and pressing my forehead with hers, crying my anger out, then shutting my eyes…

-"Why? Quorra". I asked, crying.

-"Why what?" She asked back.

-"Why do people act like… such animals? Why do people HURT each other, Quorra?". I asked, crying.

-"Once, somebody I trust told me that it was human nature… and I promised him to make his dream come true… his dream of changing this world into something better, his dream of cleaning this human nature". Quorra whispered to my ear. "Joseph… I'm here with you. We are both changing this world no matter how much it hurts".

I tried to stop my tears for a while…

-"Thank you so much, Quorra". I smiled, wiping my tears away. "Always together".

I kissed Quorra and smiled at her with tears on my eyes.

-"Always together" She said with a smile.

Suddenly, we heard a groan. It was the victim, waking up.

-"Joseph, he's alive!" Quorra said with relief.

-"Come on, we better help him up". I said.

We placed his arms around our necks and helped him stand up and walk…

-"Can you walk?" I asked.

-"Sure, I'm… ugh! I'm just pretty damn hurt from my waist upwards". The boy explained.

Then, we reached the main courtyard and everybody looked at us, helping the wounded student walk to the nurse's office.

-"We need a nurse over here!" Quorra shouted.

A girl called one of the school's nurses.

-"You'll be fine, my friend. I promise". I softly told the victim.

The boy waved goodbye at us as he was being carried to the office. Suddenly, a school guard wanted to arrest us. The students in the courtyard booed him… then I resisted his arrest by grabbing his neck.

-"You blame what you don't know! … You're blaming the WRONG guy! Don't you believe me? LOOK IN THAT PLACE! THERE THEY ARE! THE GUILTY ONES!" I exclaimed, pointing at the small empty yard where we fought the bullies.

Everyone looked there… and there they were, the bullies… walking out slowly to ease the pain from their wounds. We were in front of them and walked away with a threatening look.

We were somehow considered the heads of the school, after the fight that broke out with Steve and his group, and after having saved the bully victim.

However, later, after having taken all classes, we sneaked into the offices, searching for our registration documents, and erasing all data about us, to appear like if we were never there and avoid causing suspicions that could endanger our secret augmentations. It didn't matter as Quorra could homeschool me, yet, dropping out of school wasn't a problem for us… we were on a vacation to change the world.

At night, Sam Flynn was riding his Ducati motorcycle around the nighttime streets of Los Angeles… looking at the buildings, the lights, a typical night in the city, until a car tried to run over him, making him fall off his ride…

-"What the…"

Evron Nacht walked out of the black van that tried to run over Sam, disguised and identifying himself as an FBI agent.

-"Sam Flynn… finally" Evron said. "FBI, you're coming with us. Guys, take his motorcycle too".

Evron and his disguised soldiers took Sam to their secret hideout, planning to interrogate him to find the location of the microchip containing the Grid.

-"I don't know where it is! I buried it so nobody could find it anymore" Sam answered.

-"You didn't bury it, Sam! We know that you needed the Grid to create a new system and to preserve your dad's memories!" The interrogator applied pressure on Sam.

-"I buried it! Right in front of my home and deep in the ground!" Sam specified.

-"Good, Sam… guys…let's find the microchip". Evron ordered.

They left Sam in custody with a guard inside the interrogation room, and other guards patrolling the Umbra Proxima's secret hideout. He, of course, decided to escape, and out of adrenaline, he took down the guard in the room with his own fists, and then took a gun out of the guard's pocket, and quietly took down the other guards and cameras.

Meanwhile, at my apartment, Quorra and I were playing some Halo: Reach on my Xbox 360. For a beginner, Quorra was very skilled. She didn't just run and gunned, she took cover, and planned her maneuvers… it was somehow, amazing for me.

-"Joseph… I got a doubt about these games". Quorra said.

-"Sure, you can ask me". I said.

-"Do these… Spartans…get derezzed forever?" She asked with a serious face.

-"No! no, they don't… you see, they respawn when they die in the game.. Somehow they never die." I explained. "Besides, they were modeled by programmers and voiced by actors. I don't think they have any real emotions in there like programs do inside the game grid".

-"Maybe they do have feelings and… you may have not realized because you haven't been inside there". Quorra inferred. "Programs inside the game grid were also modeled, yet not voiced but somehow after getting a lot of information from the Users… they become…intelligent."

I stopped to think about what Quorra said…

-"…Maybe you're right". I said, thinking about Quorra's idea.

Then, the phone began to ring,

-"Hold on a second, Q".

…and I answered.

-"Hello?"

-"Joseph, it's Sam. Listen…there's this FBI group searching for the Grid. I lied telling them that I buried it near my home. I bet they know where is it… they didn't even asked for my address". Sam explained, with a slightly agitated tone.

-"Okay, just tell me where are you and we'll pick you up, man. Just stay calm". I said.

-"Stay calm? How can I be calm when these guys want The Grid! Dad's creation! The Government, Joseph... the Government wants The Grid for their benefit just like they want Quorra! I'm SURE about that" Sam said desperately. "Listen, here's where you have to go…"

Sam indicated and described the place where he was being held on and what he saw as he was being taken to there in a van.

-"…it looks like a warehouse from outside, but inside… it's a whole different thing". He described.

-"…Shit. I'm coming Sam! Hang on!" I said, then I hung up.

-"Quorra… we're moving". I said as I morphed my lightsuit on.

-"Why? What's going on?" She asked.

-"Sam's in trouble. I don't know what's going on but… the Government is trying to find The Grid". I explained. "Probably… they could be after you, too".

Quorra and I geared up. Rifles, our light discs, lightswords, lightcycle and lightjet-ready batons, frag grenades, lightshields, and another baton made especially for the lightchopper.

Quorra gave me a small communication device which was a small earbud with a very small but powerful microphone on its outer end.

We traveled on our lightcycles around the outskirts of Los Angeles. Sam mentioned that it was a warehouse almost outside the city.

Meanwhile, Sam sneaked around the secret Umbra Proxima hideout, trying to find a way to signal us, then he found a bunch of propane tanks on the edge of some kind of supply room he went into.

-"Can't believe these guys didn't saw the microchip on my necklace. Now…I gotta find my Ducati". He said to himself.

After a couple of hours, Quorra and I we found the warehouse. It seemed empty and lonely from outside… but inside…

-"Quorra, stay close". I adviced.

-"Got it".

We got closer to the perimeter but Quorra noticed something before stepping closer.

-"Turrets on the top. Hold". She ordered.

-"Damn… close call". I whispered.

-"Keep walking, but do it…slowly" She advised.

We both walked and suddenly, a truck full of propane came out with no driver, then Sam rode his motorcycle outside the door with a propane tank on his hand, then he threw it to the truck and made the bunch of tanks explode. I protected Quorra from the explosion.

-"Glad you made it, guys". Sam told us.

-"Sam! You're alright". I said, greeting him.

-"Thanks dude. Always countin' on ya'". He said smiling.

-"Sam… you're here". Quorra greeted him with a smile.

-"Quorra… long time". He said, hugging her. "Thank God, you're okay".

I saw a sniper in one of the warehouse's small windows, and his red dot laser over Sam's head.

-"SAM!"

I tackled Sam down along with Quorra, pushing them to a wall and saving them from the sniper.

-"Sniper. Sam… you alright?" I asked.

-"Yeah… thanks. I'm alright". He confirmed.

-"We better get to a safe place". Quorra advised.

-"Hold… I'll give these guys a message". I said.

I activated my lightchopper, and flew over the warehouse/hideout. I shot the snipers and turrets around it, then I destroyed a section of the hideout.

After that, I deactivated the lightchopper and went back with Quorra and Sam.

-"We better get moving. Sam, where's the chip?". I asked.

-"Here, on my neck". He said.

-"Damn nice place to hide a whole world". I said sarcastically.

-"Well, I don't think people will look at a necklace expecting to find a revolutionary key to another world" Sam answered.

-"You got a point there, man". I said, laughing.

-"Dammit, guys! Let's go!". Quorra hurried us.

We activated our lightcycles and Quorra gave a baton to Sam which was actually another lightcycle.

-"Come on, man, you thought I wasn't gonna bring one for you?" Quorra smiled.

We escaped from the Umbra Proxima's hideout.

Quorra explained to us that she had improved the lightcycles by adding a function allowing them to look like normal motorcycles.

Later...

Quorra, Sam and I went into hiding in my apartment. Quorra was in my room while I was talking to Sam in private on the rooftop.

-"Sam… I love Quorra so much, and all but… why did you left her with me, while she could be with you… the one who saved her from The Grid?" I asked.

-"Joseph… this life is not only love for me. Besides, Quorra will be safer with you, I know that. I knew you would fall in love with her. I know that you would do anything to protect her…even give your own blood. Joseph, I didn't leave her just because I wanted her safe with another guy… I took my time to think where to leave her in safety… I just couldn't leave her just like that. Quorra is more than what you might think, and you Joseph, I know your desire to change the world for greater good. Two similar ideas from you two would change this world". Sam explained his purposes.

-"She changed my life…drastically. When she stepped inside my apartment, I felt something for her instantly. I may have taught her a little about my world but… she taught me about how a world without violence could perceive these atrocities like people killing each other. That night when she cried after watching those violent videos… it just pierced my heart". I explained. "Why did you choose me, Sam?"

-"Because you know better than I do, that our world is sinking. You needed somebody with a pure and clean mind, somebody that could aid you in your journey. Trust me, sooner or later, all of this was going to happen no matter where you were". Sam explained. "I truly trust your word about protecting and loving Quorra…with all your heart".

-"Sam… thank you so much, brother. Thank you for having brought Quorra to me, and again, I promise I will take care of her…and love her for the rest of my life". I said smiling, as I gave a friendly hug to Sam.

We were both looking at the nighttime city from my apartment's rooftop, talking about how life has been with Quorra…

-"Why didn't you get any augmentations? Did Quorra ever told you about them?" I asked.

-"I do have the augmentations". Sam cleared "Months after having escaped the Grid, Quorra had already developed a laboratory below ENCOM, The place where you got yours. Ironically, not even ENCOM knows about it. I've been drawing the attention away from that place".

-"How was her face when you showed her Ireland?" Sam asked out of curiosity.

-"Man, it was beautiful. Her eyes shining with joy, her smile was…priceless. I felt a warm feeling in my chest when I saw her happiness". I said, recalling the time when I took Quorra into Ireland.

-"You truly love her so much, don't you?" Sam asked with a small grin.

-"Yeah. Why do you say so?" I asked.

-"The way you look away when you're describing her, and that… change of tone in your voice when you mention her… that really gives away the love you have for her". He explained.

I thought about the time when Quorra was captured by AsterGen…and blamed it on myself, eventually confessing him about the incident in a very tense tone.

-"Sam… I have to tell you something. Quorra was captured by AsterGen… they got her away from my hands... They… I'm sorry Sam but, as much as I want her I…"

…and then Sam interrupted me.

-"Joseph! Joseph… calm down. I know about that already. Let's remember… did you rescue her?" He asked.

-"Yeah". I answered.

-"Even though you risked your life, you still went for her… you even killed Dr. Stafford! That damn AsterGen lunatic!" Sam said, cheering me up. "In love, you are capable of overcoming your limits for that special person".

-"Wow" I gasped, thinking about his words. "Where did you learn that from?" I asked.

-"My father" He whispered. "He told me, long ago".

-"Wow…" I gasped.

-"Quorra was meant to be with you. Life always does things to put them slowly in the right place…doesn't it?" He explained.

-"…Yeah, I guess". I agreed.

-"Quorra is at the right place, with you. Never doubt it, alright?" He said, in a serious firm tone.

-"I promise" I said, shaking Sam's hand.

Then, I thought about Quorra…

-"I wonder what Quorra's doing…" I asked.

Sam and I went back into my room, where we found Quorra sleeping.

-"Look at her, Sam. She's… wow… so beautiful". I gasped.

I placed a blanket on Quorra and turned the lights off, only leaving a lamp turned on.

-"Goodnight, love". I whispered, kissing Quorra gently on her forehead.

Meanwhile, The Umbra Proxima soldiers were at Sam's home, trying to find the Grid…yet they got nothing.

-"That… SCUM! He fooled us!" Evron shouted in anger.

He went to search inside Sam's house, and looked around for the chip, making a mess.

-"DAMMIT!" Evron screamed. "Anybody got anything?"

-"Negative sir", All soldiers said , one after the other.

Suddenly, Evron got a transmission from the raided Umbra Proxima hideout.

-"Sir, I think we found the Grid" The guard said. "Sam Flynn was caught by a camera revealing the location of the chip, apparently, it's on his necklace".

-"What were his exact words?" Evron asked.

The guard replayed the recorded video and transmitted the audio to Evron

"Can't believe these guys didn't saw the microchip on my necklace. Now…I gotta find my Ducati"

-"I'm coming for you, kid", Evron smirked. "Gentlemen, looks like we found our Grid".

Part 2 Starts here

Sam and I went back to the rooftop to talk some more. I explained to him many things about how I see my future with Quorra.

-"Do you plan to marry her?" Sam asked.

-"Honestly, I do" I said, grinning and blushing.

-"I wonder how your babies are gonna be, man" Sam said jokingly.

-"Geez! Hahaha!"

Suddenly, Quorra pushed us from the rooftop while she jumped down with us. Before falling, she activated a 3-passenger lightjet.

-"WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" I asked tensely.

-"Those aren't FBI agents". Quorra said.

I looked up and saw a helicopter that had fired at the rooftop.

-"How come I didn't saw that!" I exclaimed.

Quorra flew the lightjet away. Evron and his forces chased us in their own helicopters.

-"On the turret, Sam!" Quorra ordered.

-"On it!". Sam said.

He got on the turret and fired against the helicopters, successfully taking one down.

-"One down!" Sam cheered.

-"Six to go…" Quorra said.

I stood up from my seat and opened a hatch on the lightjet's ceiling.

-"Joseph! Are you trying to get killed!" She exclaimed.

-"I'm trying to get you NOT killed!" I answered.

I took my head out of the lightjet from a hatch on its ceiling, then I aimed my sniper rifle to a helicopter's cockpit, then I shot a pilot's head, splattering his blood on his front window.

-"Down!" I shouted.

I took cover after one of the helicopters shot the jet's hull, but suddenly a beeping sound was heard inside the jet.

-"We're not going down are we?" I asked.

-"… Not your day, man". Sam said, affirming that we were falling.

-"Hang on! Brace for impact!" Quorra warned.

The plane shook hard, and then we crashed down.

After a few minutes, Quorra, Sam and I were on the floor… the asphalt. The lightjet had derezzed and deactivated itself. I woke up… I saw Sam lying on one side and Quorra on the other.

-"Quorra? Sam?" I gasped. "Quorra! Sam!".

They did not wake up… I was practically alone. I saw how Evron and his henchmen walked closer to us. I took my rifle and aimed as a last resort. I wouldn't just give myself up without putting up a fight. I shot…and shot… and shot…I kept shooting at them… until I heard that click…THAT click that gave my hopes up. I was out of ammo…

-"Take the chip…and the ISO". Evron ordered.

-"You're not taking Quorra" I whispered.

I crawled towards Quorra… caressing her face. My tears fell over her cheeks… running down…

-"I'm sorry, baby… I tried" I whispered to her. "I swear I tried, Quorra. I tried."

Evron kicked me once on my rib.

-"Get away from the ISO!" Evron ordered.

-"NO!" I screamed with all the power of my lungs.

Evron and his soldiers tried to pull me away from Quorra, but I held her tight. I screamed and tried to hold Quorra closer to me. Other soldiers took the Grid away from Sam's necklace, but they were putting an effort on separating me from Quorra. They couldn't shoot because they did not want to hurt her and risk their plans.

Suddenly, Sam woke up and shot one of the soldiers, attracting their attention. Evron was still trying to pull me away. I tried to take Quorra's light disc but I couldn't reach it… suddenly, Quorra opened her eyes and pushed me down, then she attacked Evron with her lightdisc, shoving him back.

-"…Leave them alone". Quorra ordered.

-"Well look who it is, the ISO". Evron said, smirking.

-"My name is Quorra". She said.

-"What do you want from her!" I asked.

-"Her capabilities. We would rectify her to serve the nation… and to take us to a new generation". Evron explained.

-"Who are you?" Sam asked.

-"Umbra Proxima. We work for our government to improve it and to maintain order in our nation. My name is Evron Nacht, Leader of this order-keeping group" Evron answered. "Come here, Quorra… come here where you belong and help us build a better future".

-"You're only getting my dead circuitry!" Quorra screamed.

Sam, Quorra and I fought the Umbra Proxima soldiers.

-"You condemned your people to fall…but we will save them from you". I said.

-"Take the chip back to base!" Evron ordered to one of his henchmen as he handed him Sam's chip.

We used our guns, fists, swords and lightdiscs against them. Out of anger, I chopped a soldier's chest with my lightdisc, then sliced another's neck, and went on along with Quorra and Sam, fighting the soldiers down. Quorra punching them down, choking them and snapping their necks while Sam punched and shot them, then stabbed the remaining ones with a lightsword. They had swords, knives and guns. 4 of the 10 soldiers, including Evron and the soldier who went back to his base, survived.

After the tiring battle, Evron fell on his right knee, tired.

-"You could just give up! Evron! The government is just using you as a puppet!" I persuaded.

-"The government is what keeps us standing! You blame your superiors based on jealousy!" Evron shouted.

-"They are NOT my superiors. I don't accept any power-hungry animal as my superior. They are not wise as you think! They're USING you and they will later dispose of you like a paper!" I insistently persuaded.

-"You're BLIND! You're deaf! You don't know what you're talking about!" Evron insisted, ignoring my words.

He crawled and stood up, then went back onto his helicopter and left.

Quorra, Sam and I stood up.

-"He's got the Grid!" Sam exclaimed.

-"Follow his chopper!" I advised.

We rezzed our lightcycles, turned off their glowing circuitry, and followed him stealthily by land. We hid behind alleys, buildings, bridges, anything, but still, we kept tracking him.

…Until we saw him entering through a very unnoticeable place at the outskirts of Los Angeles: an apparently locked up and buried manhole which led to a web of tunnels. We patiently waited a while until he went in, then we went after him.

-"Alright, guys. Keep it calm…anybody brought any bombs?" Sam asked.

-"Ugh… I think we left 'em home". I said.

-"We don't need explosives…just our minds." Quorra said.

-"Very well said. Good luck" I said as I kissed Quorra. "Good luck to you too, Sam". I told him as I shook his hand.

-"Good luck to you too, man". Sam said as he shook my shoulder.

We ran through the tunnels. Using our communications devices, we informed each other on what we saw. At first, just dirty walls, but then, we saw blue lights, and vault doors.

-"Anybody's stuck behind a thick door?" I asked.

-"Me". Sam said. "I hate these doors."

-"Me too. Anybody got any ideas?" Quorra asked.

-"You guys got your lightdiscs with you?" Sam asked.

-"Yeah." Quorra answered.

-"Let me try" Sam said.

He, using his previously implanted augmentations, morphed his lightsuit.

-"Ugh. Morphing was a bit buggy. Maybe some fixing at your lab will improve these old rusty augmentations, Quorra."

-"I'll keep that in mind." Quorra answered.

-"Okay, what was the plan?" I asked.

-"Use your discs to chop the door's locking bars". Sam suggested.

-"Quorra, now I got a question, how do these lightdiscs work?" I asked, out of curiosity.

-"A laser trapped in a thin glass. The glass morphs in a thicker state depending on where the user places his or her hand on the disc." Quorra explained.

-"Guys, they have the Grid! Save any questions for later!" Sam insisted.

We slowly sliced the doors with our lightdiscs.

-"Get in! Move!" I whispered.

As I went in, my adrenaline was in high levels. A guard tried to grab me from my neck but I sliced his arm off, then I sliced him out. The guards came after me, one by one, I sliced them. I felt fear, from the cold place, and Evron sitting on his chair, behind a long glass table, just like he had planned my entrance. I kept neutralizing the soldiers, but suddenly, between the battle, Evron had left his chair. After I took down half of his men, I saw him behind me, injecting me a blue substance into my neck… then I fell unconscious.

After a while, Sam was brought by Evron's men, who tied him up into the wall with a metallic silver belt, just like I found myself when I woke up. Then Quorra was brought into the same room, Sam was still unconscious but I was waking up… they attached Quorra into a wall with blue squares behind it. Her arms were trapped by many chains attached to the wall.

-"Rectify her." Evron ordered.

-"Joseph! Joseph, wake up! WAKE UP!" Quorra screamed in desperation.

I opened my eyes, and I looked at her. My heart was completely broken, as I helplessly watched her about to be rectified. I remembered that day at the park when I first went out with her, the trip to Ireland, that night…that intimate night together, our kisses, our hugs...it was just… so heartbreaking.

Suddenly, she began to scream as the blue panels behind her became red. They were slowly rectifying her.

-"QUORRA! Come on! You have to resist it! You're half human!" I desperately said.

Her circuitry began turning red, dark red just like the color of blood.

-"NO! EVRON! LET HER GO! YOUR GOVERNMENT IS USING YOU! They will kill you as soon as you complete their purpose!" I shouted.

-"You liar! How you dare talk like that to your leaders? RESPECT THEM" Evron ordered.

I began to slam my back to let my lightdisc fall and chop off the metallic belt that was holding me. I had only one chance but there was no other option. I slammed my back with the wall in desperation, until it fell, and made a cut through the metallic belt.

-"EVRON!" I shouted and tackled him out of anger.

I took my lightdisc and tried to kill him but he stopped my hand with his. I slowly pushed my disc frontwards to Evron's face.

-"You…will not…take Quorra!" I screamed in anger.

He kicked me away, stood up and approached me.

-"You will not take my ISO!" Evron shouted.

His guards attacked me but out of anger and adrenaline, I sliced, punched, kicked and neutralized them. I saw how Quorra was getting rectified but her circuitry suddenly began to turn back to blue. I began feeling relief, at knowing that she was overcoming rectification. I kept fighting off the guards until it was only just Evron and me.

-"Bring it, you government slave!" I taunted.

-"Be fair. Fist to fist, no disc" He said.

I placed the disc on my back and raised my fists. I punched Evron in the face and he punched me back on my stomach, then I kept aiming for his head, but he punched me once again, so hard that he left me out of breath. I stood up again, but he punched me on my head. I heard this "beep" sound ringing inside my ears. I became dizzy, and then I fell… I gave my last efforts to stand up, but the last thing I saw...were Quorra's eyes.

Then, Evron walked towards Quorra and pressed her against the rectifier.

-"You will serve me. You will serve my nation." He whispered to Quorra and smirked.

-"You and your corrupt government will fall, even if you rectify me!" Quorra shouted.

I woke up on the cold floor, and looked up. Evron was taunting Quorra. I couldn't listen as I was waking up from unconsciousness, but then he slapped her. My blood boiled with anger and I felt heat around my body, then I stood up and ran towards Evron, and punched him fiercely on his head, making him fall. I punched him repetitively, breaking his left cheekbone.

-"HOW DO YOU DARE MISTREAT HER!" I screamed.

Evron took a gun, about to fire at me, but I grabbed my lightdisc and threw it against him, cutting off his right arm and making him drop his gun. He screamed in pain but my anger was so intense that I did not felt any regret. I repeatedly sliced his chest superficially with my disc and finally stood up and looked at him.

-"The government would have killed you, but now I'm making you a favor" I whispered with a grim voice.

Evron lied down on the floor and closed his eyes… He died.

I went up to Quorra. She was unconscious. I chopped off the chains that were holding her and she fell on my arms. Her head lying on my lap. I caressed her hair. I couldn't fight back the tears, I just cried…

-"Come on. You'll be fine. You'll be okay." I said, trying not to lose hope.

Her circuitry suddenly shut down…

-"Quorra? Quorra? No. No! Quorra! Come on!" I screamed. "NO! QUORRA! Wake up! QUORRA!".

I lost all hope. She did not open her eyes. I cried my heart out, remembering what we went through together. I cried and shut my eyes with force, trying to hold my tears, but that was impossible. I felt so much pain. I felt my body becoming cold without her. I kissed her once more, and cried, but I didn't break the kiss…until… she locked her lips with mine. I felt her hand over my hair once more.

-"Quorra?" I gasped as I looked at her directly to her eyes.

-"It's me, Joseph. I kept my promise". She whispered.

I smiled, wiping my tears out.

-"I thought you were…"

-"Derezzed?" She asked with a smile.

I hugged her tight. Her circuitry lighted back on and kissed her passionately. I felt a warm sensation, taking off the cold feeling of loneliness and darkness on my body. I kissed her forehead and kept hugging her.

-"Wow. Love between a human and an ISO. Amazing". Evron whispered.

I stood up and took my lightdisc.

-"Can't you die already!" I shouted with anger.

I was about to throw my lightdisc at him.

-"NO! No! Spare my life! Spare MY LIFE!" Evron shouted.

-"You were about to kill Quorra! Why should I spare your fucking worthless life!" I asked, angered. "I will rip your limbs off!"

-"…I am not as evil as you may think". Evron said softly as he covered his face with his only arm.

I was surprised and stopped my attack. He was a member of a secret government group who wouldn't stop at anything, but somehow, we lighted up a little spark of goodness in him.

-"I had a wife…I had kids, but I was kidnapped when I was 25 years old. They made me abide the rules, treated me as a slave. The president even humiliated me once in front of all the council after I questioned his authority. I decided to prove him that I am better than him. I created this group to serve him. I had no other choice but to leave my family and feelings away, and concentrate on my work. " Evron explained. "I never saw a true demonstration of love since that last day I saw my family. I never saw love, until I saw you both right now"

I looked at Quorra.

-"No. What if you're tricking us just so when we turn our backs you get the opportunity to kill us!" I asked.

-"Joseph, I don't think he's lying" Quorra said.

Evron took a photo of his wife and his three children.

-"I keep this to remind myself that one day, I will prove myself better than the government, and that I will get back with my kids. David, Mariah and Amy". He said with a very sad face. "I am sorry for what I've put you through. The government gave me strict orders to capture you, but I guess I am just feeding the beast when I abide their ruling."

-"You are, Evron. If you consider it, and leave this corrupt and evil government of yours, you will be free, and you will be able to see your family" I offered.

-"I… but they are my only way to get to them!" Evron said.

-"They're not. We are freeing this world from them. Not only this country's government, all of them! Cuban, Korean, Chinese, Mexican, among others… All of them are leading their own nations into darkness. Economic crisis, wars… all of those things will be over."

Suddenly, Evron received a call and answered.

-"Hello?"

-"You betrayed us, Nacht. You gave in into your feelings and disobeyed our orders." A deep voice said through his phone.

-"Yes! I DID! Just like you did long ago!" Evron shouted with anger. "You, President Thomas Valentine! YOU ENSLAVED ME AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!"

Evron ran towards a computer and plugged a needle-like cable on the back of his head. Then he typed a code on his computer, freeing Sam.

-"Ugh… where am I?" Sam asked as he woke up.

-"Run! Don't let them get you!" Evron shouted.

-"Evron! Come with us!" I told him.

-"My damaged body won't last any longer. I will go with you, digitally. I will find my family." He said as he pushed a button. He received an electric discharge on his head and fainted.

-"Evron?" I shouted, wondering what happened to him.

-"I am inside the system. Keep running. Be free" Evron spoke through his headquarters' speakers. "Take your microchip, Sam. It's on the table."

Sam took the microchip that contained the Grid.

-"Time to move!" Quorra exclaimed.

We escaped out of the headquarters. Evron opened the doors for us by accessing in his own security system.

We kept running until we saw the manhole up the tunnel. We climbed out and sealed the path and glared at the sunshine. We felt freedom, like if we had been underground for years even when it was only for hours. We looked at the sun, and took deep breaths, inhaling the fresh oxygen from the surface. Suddenly, the ground shook a little. Evron had destroyed his headquarters.

We smiled but did not spoke a word until we reached home.

Sam waved and left to his home, while Quorra and I entered ours, and after a moment of silence, she spoke.

-"You okay?" She asked me

-"…I don't know." I sighed.

I kept remembering how I felt when Quorra was being rectified…and when I thought I had lost her. I felt the cold sensation… that sensation that burned my heart down. It was painful…

-"Quorra… promise me, that you'll take care when we go out on a mission." I requested.

-"I promise you that with all my heart" She said.

I smiled and kissed her. Her love made me feel back home, and returned that warm sensation to my body and heart. I went out of this world every time our lips locked together.

-"Where do you want me to take you next, baby?" I asked her.

She took a necklace out of her pocket. It was The Grid.

-"Out of this world" She answered as she kissed me back.

But what I didn't realize about that response is that she meant it…literally. Our next destiny… was space, yet, I didn't realized what was running on Quorra's mind with that idea.


	3. Episode 3: Stopping the flames

At my room… Quorra and I weren't there exactly…

We used a heavily modified laptop which had its webcam replaced by a more compact but fully operational version of the digitizing gun used by Kevin and Sam to access The Grid. I had gone into it once before, but it always felt like the first time for me.

We were inside The Grid. The existence of the Internet eased our entry into every kind of system, even the Government's. The Grid was able to create a portal into the Internet world. They were almost the same, except that the Internet's world was scrambled with blocks of data flying around with the shape of numbers and white squares instead of a grid-like panel or a digital world like The Grid. We were experiencing the future of hacking, but that didn't meant it wasn't dangerous at all… The Internet was probably the most exhaustive experience I've ever lived inside a digital world.

However, hours ago after digitization, I was running through a library of data blocks inside one of the government's core systems. The data seemed like white squares lying in the middle of the dark, digital space. I was being chased by government security programs that seemed… like insects. These programs were not like the ones from the Grid, they had an insect-like form as well as variations. They were "security programs" chasing us. We were considered by them as a security breach.

-"Quorra?" I shouted but she didn't answer.

I was being surrounded by the spider-like antiviruses until a strange armored person appeared with armor somewhat bulkier than the lightsuit, along with a plain black helmet.

-"…Love?" I gasped.

She laughed and jumped over the antiviruses, stomping and shooting them with a digital automatic derezzer rifle, instantly killing them and left the system defenseless.

-"Need a hand, baby?" Quorra joke, exhaustedly. "Come on, just keep following me"

I followed her until we reached a peculiar data block which, in contrast of the other ones, this block was green.

-"Joseph, do your magic and get this data morpher in this data block. Dou" Quorra ordered.

She gave me a hexagon-shaped, glowing blue disc, which was meant to be inserted into the main data block to be able to remotely transform or manipulate any kind of information the government has on their database. We decided to forge a new birth certificate and all kinds of government-property papers that had my information, yet I could still use my name for any kinds of transactions, memberships, registrations, etcetera.

-"On it. Give me some cover." I commanded.

-"No problem" She said.

Quorra covered me as I merged and programmed the data morpher. Waves of antiviruses rushed to our wave. My hands shook as I kept programming the morpher, but a screen displayed something that caught my attention: the president's notes and schedules. He planned on privatizing the Internet as well as removing all kinds of activist organizations that weakened his position, and he also planned on taking over different weak countries and as a final action, he wanted to promote his reelection. Surprised by this information, I couldn't resist knowing about it, so I extracted it into a small data carrier that could be materialized into the real world.

-"Joseph? Hurry it up! We don't have too much time!" Quorra warned.

I turned around and saw MILLIONS of antivirus "bugs" coming towards us from behind.

-"We'll not be able to hold 'em off for long!" She exclaimed.

I finally was able to merge the data morpher and pulled Quorra with me out of there into the portal, accessing the Grid and leaving the Internet, and then the portal shut down.

-"…Those things, Quorra…" I gasped. "Those things… almost killed us."

-"I prefer the term 'derezzed'." Quorra said as she retracted her helmet and armor.

Now in the Grid, reprogrammed and rebuilt after Kevin Flynn's sacrifice, Quorra and I explored it and found a new and rebuilt version of the "End of Line" club. It was identical to the one that Clu derezzed once to murder Zuse, its owner. We walked around the club from outside, just wandering around the digital world.

The sad thing was that the Grid…was like a paradise for me. No more wars, no more religious differences… in comparison to my world, it was now some kind of…Utopia. All programs were walking around. No intolerance, no fights, no mobs, they even cooperated to expand The Grid, programming their world by themselves. I don't know if their users commanded them to do so but yet, they were working together and they enjoyed doing so. Most of all, they did not have corrupted authorities, yet they could be corrupted by users, which was not a problem as they all used the internet instead of The Grid.

-"Quorra… is it me or….. is your world more peaceful than mine?" I asked with a soft voice.

-"…I think. Since Clu was taken down, The Grid is…at peace." Quorra sighed, looking around.

Quorra and I walked into a Solar Sailer, heading into the portal to the real world. I glanced at the digital world running by itself in harmony and prosperity. Programs befriending others, and even celebrating their birthdays, but in their case, they were called "Rezdays". The End of Line club was seen to be prospering, even without Castor in charge.

-"I remember when I sat here with Sam, after having recovered his dad's disc to get to the real world. He told me about how his world is… how the sun shines." Quorra remembered.

-"You expected peace in my world, right?" I asked.

-"A part of me knew it wasn't a paradise, but another part of me wished for it." She said.

Her eyes began tearing.

-"I remember when… when Kevin saved us from Clu. He…sacrificed himself…FOR US!" Quorra cried, then she hugged me tight.

I tried to hold my tears and keep my heart together but… her sadness broke me apart. I felt like a bullet piercing my heart when she cried. I silently dropped my tears as I hugged her.

-"We'll make it, Quorra. We'll clean the world." I said, sobbing.

I pressed my forehead with hers and whispered.

-"I promise… I really promise that we will clean the world, no matter which measures we have to take, but I promise that we will be always together, and I will have you with me when this whole war is over. We would be together, on a grassland, just like in Ireland, smiling at the new and peaceful world we will have. I would be holding your hand as we sleep below a tree."

Quorra kissed me. I felt her tears joining with mine on our cheeks…

-"Quorra… look at me... Look at me. We WILL be free." I whispered. "I promise".

I felt Quorra's arms hugging me tight as she wiped her tears off with my lightsuit. I looked at the portal's light as we approached it on the Solar Sailer.

We arrived to the portal. Its light shined over us, and reflected over Quorra's eyes. I took my identity disc… but somehow hesitated in going out of the Grid. I felt it was the most peaceful place I had been in. Earth wasn't safe anymore as it was slowly being sunk by its own social rules, corrupted law enforcement and government along with blood-thirsty and power-hungry people and leaders.

I looked at Quorra before stepping in, and said:

-"I wish I could stay here… this is my dream, but we can change the world, and I don't want to let that opportunity out of my hands. If you came with me, it means something."

-"It means that we can change the world." Quorra clarified.

I raised my lightdisc while Quorra hugged me to brace herself. I briefly looked at the portal's entrance and saw two figures, one of them seemed like a program but the other one had a white hooded coat which glowed from its interior, I barely distinguished an old man… but it suddenly vanished, leaving only the other program… Was that who I thought? Was it just a product of my stressed mind?

-"…Sir?" I gasped.

Then we went back to the real world. We appeared on the floor. I was looking at the ceiling with my eyes wide open… then I began to sob. I couldn't believe that the Grid ran better than my own world… I also couldn't believe in the possibility that… Kevin Flynn could still be alive. Maybe he didn't derez himself at all.

-"I saw him", I whispered.

-"Who?" Quorra asked.

-"Your creator" I answered softly as I slowly turned to look at her.

The next morning, Quorra saw some skateboarders roaming through the sidewalks. She was curious on how to ride a skateboard. When I woke up, I looked for her outside. She was practicing with my old skateboard, attempting to jump gaps and maintain her balance, but she fell, yet she kept getting up and trying again.

I went downstairs with her, and she was about to lose her balance but I caught her on time.

-"Learning how to skate?" I smiled. "Easy… just try putting your arms like this".

I extended Quorra's arms and positioned her body carefully to balance her.

-"Easy… now, we're practicing movement". I said. "Place your foot on the floor, then push yourself forward with it". I indicated.

-"Let's see…like this?" Quorra asked as she pushed herself successfully.

-"Yeah! Nice!" I smiled.

-"I think I can handle it from here." She said.

She continued to practice and learned many tricks pretty quickly by only using her imagination and performing random stunts. She seemed full of joy, jumping around and riding on the skateboard, despite of my small breakdown after having gone to the Grid. She seemed to forget about her worries when she explores things about my world.

-"Can we go to a park or…somewhere I can skate better?" Quorra asked.

-"I know where" I said.

We went to a nearby skatepark with plenty of slopes, ramps and rails. I just saw how Quorra skated around the slopes and ramps and then she began to follow the actions of a group of skateboarders. She saw how one of them slided on a rail and thought about it for a while before trying it. She jumped and successfully slided on the rail, then she landed on the board without losing her balance.

-"Joseph! I did it! I did it!" She cheerfully exclaimed.

-"WOO!" I shouted and clapped. "You nailed it, Q!"

Meanwhile, the skaters looked at her.

-"Girl has skills, bro" One of them said.

-"…and she's hot." Another skater said, lustfully.

-"Damn… I wonder if that guy is her boyfriend" A skater wondered as he looked at me.

-"I don't know… Why don't we talk to her?" Another skater suggested, smirking.

They approached Quorra.

-"Hey there!" A skater said.

-"Hello" Quorra friendlily smiled.

-"What's your name?" He asked.

-"Quorra". She answered.

-"Nice to meet you. I'm Shawn, and they are, Brad, Frank, Arnold, Mike and also, here's Matt, the team leader". Shawn introduced himself and his team.

-"Hey there, guys" Quorra smiled.

-"So what are you, sexy lady, doing in these corners?" Matt asked, looking at her with lust.

-"…Uh, I'm just practicing my skating". She answered nervously, perceiving Matt's desires. "…and my boyfriend's over there, the guy looking at the horizon".

-"Your boyfriend?" Matt asked.

-"Yeah, his name is Joseph." She said, trying to fend off Matt's lusty feelings.

-"…Can we talk to him?" Matt asked.

-"Sure. Joseph!" She called me.

I went up to Quorra.

-"Who are you guys?" I asked.

-"We're just skaters" Brad said. "We just saw her skills and, she's pretty good."

Suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, Matt punched me, then his friends held him back.

-"Matt! Matt! Hold it man! Hold it up!" They told him as they held him from his arms.

-"Ugh! What the hell is wrong with you?" I exclaimed.

-"Her boyfriend, huh? You guys aren't married yet! I don't think there's a problem in me breaking your love down. In war and love, everything is fair". Matt smirked.

-"Seriously! Every time I go out with Quorra, there's some Captain Hormone chasing her! She's with me, I love her and she loves me! Why break us up?" I asked.

-"Because I want her." Matt grimly said as his friends let his arms go.

Matt circled around me, trying to confuse me before attacking. I carefully kept track of him.

-"Matt… I don't think this is a right way to solve this. I don't want to harm anybody but if you attack me…"

Matt interrupted me and launched his punch at me, I stopped him and twisted his arm, then kicking his feet off the floor and holding him down.

-"Listen to me Matt. Listen! There are more girls out there in the world. There's no need to take a girl that is already in another relationship." I explained.

-"BUT I WANT HER! I WANT YOUR GIRL!" He shouted.

-"I know! But I will not give her to you. I will not leave Quorra because I love her. You will not split us up." I said.

Matt seemed to have calmed down, so I stood up and released him.

-"I'm sorry, man. He's just, really bad-tempered. We're cool?" Shawn asked.

-"For sure" I said as I shook his hand.

I went up with Quorra and held her hand as we walked away, while she held the skateboard with her other hand. Suddenly she heard someone approaching.

-"Matt?" Shawn exclaimed as we heard him from a distance.

Shawn tried to grab Quorra's waist but she swinged the skateboard toward his face before he could touch her. He still persisted so she punched him once on his head, making him dizzy and then faint.

-"Matt?" Quorra called, worriedly. "Matt?"

I confirmed his vital signs by feeling his pulse.

-"He's stable. You guys call an ambulance. NOW!" I ordered. "Quorra, we better get out of here."

-"Right with you". She said.

We ran out of the skate park and headed into Quorra's underground lab.

Later, we arrived, exhausted after running so far, we just sat down on some chairs and laying our heads back, relaxing inside the lab's white walls, among Quorra's devices and designs.

-"Ahh. I'm… exhausted." Quorra gasped.

-"Same." I breathlessly answered. "You got any water in here?"

-"It's over there." Quorra pointed 5 water dispensers placed on one corner of the lab. "Left button is cold water, right button is warm water."

I took a small disposable cup and drank some cold water. I felt a very refreshing sensation spreading on my dry tongue and throat… I couldn't help it but say

-"Ahh…"

It felt like if I had walked 5 kilometers in a desert and later found a pool full of fresh water. It felt so relieving. I took another cup full of cold water to Quorra, who was just sitting down on her inclinable chair, looking at the ceiling.

-"Here's some water for you." I gave the glass to her.

-"Thank you, Joseph." She gasped, exhausted, then she drank the water. "Ahh…much better."

She stood up and walked around.

-"Joseph, don't you think that we need something stealthier than some lightsuits?" Quorra asked.

-"Wouldn't be a bad idea." I said.

She pulled of some hooded coats which expelled a whitish-blue glow from inside.

-"This coat was used by Kevin Flynn, when he saved me from the End of Line club. I saw him before my vision faded. My arm was derezzed in that moment and I was slowly dying, but he and his son, Sam, took me out of there, and managed to fix and reboot me. He once lent it to me as I went to explore the Grid and I felt somewhat safe. After he "removed himself from the equation", I took his coat and promised to use it with good intentions, or to give it to someone that had those intentions." Quorra explained.

-"You're….gonna give me Kevin's coat? No. I can't, I can't accept it. It would be a great honor but, I'm not the one who has to wear it." I said, denying her offer.

-"Why? You deserve it." She whispered.

-"No, Quorra. Don't you get it? Kevin left it for you. You are the one who has the good intentions, and a mind that is clean from evil." I whispered back. "You are the one that should wear Kevin's coat!"

I smiled and helped her put on Kevin's coat.

-"This belongs to you, love." I whispered on her ear. "This other one can be mine."

I wore the other coat.

-"It's great but… how can a glowing coat be stealthy? I know it glows from inside but, it still gives away my position." I asked.

-"Just like our lightsuits, the coats' light can be turned off if the user decides to do so." Quorra explained.

I thought about turning the coat's light off and suddenly it did.

-"Perfect." I smirked.

-"So where are we going now?" I asked.

-"Afghanistan" She answered.

-"Why?" I asked, curiously.

-"We're stopping that war once and for all. I heard that it's going on since 2001. It's been eleven years since then." Quorra said. "Sam told me after we went out of the Grid. He told me that it was one of the biggest ongoing wars."

-"…but, how are we ending it? Killing everyone? To me it sounds like the only solution, but still, it is a very bad one." I said sarcastically.

-"Joseph, you got to learn how to leave violence as a last resort." Quorra suggested. "We should try to use words and reason first. Remember, we don't want to be as savage as them."

-"The first thing they will do is put bullets in our heads!" I exclaimed nervously.

-"No bullet will pierce us! Listen. I took that into consideration. I know that neither the Afghan nor the U.S. Army will be willing to talk. I know that they will be firing at us before we can even say 'Excuse me'. Now please, just listen to me." She demanded.

She took two white lightdiscs from a table and handed one of them to me.

-"Unlike the discs I designed before in the real world, these discs aren't just for combat, these are somewhat the same model but they store upgrades for the lightsuit as well as for your body's performance." Quorra explained as she placed the disc on my back.

I began feeling dizzy, nauseous and somehow weak. My blood pressure was lowering quickly, but suddenly it went back to normal and my heart rate also suffered a sudden but brief alteration, then it normalized. Suddenly, I began to feel cold… an extreme cold temperature regardless of the room's temperature.

-"Quorra! What is this…upgrade!" I mumbled, shivering.

-"Easy, baby, your body is adapting to the upgrades." Quorra explained as she hugged me tight to calm me down.

The cold feeling began to gradually disappear until my body reached normal temperature.

-"You okay now?" Quorra asked, concernedly.

-"…Yeah" I gasped with a smile.

My body suddenly began morphing a more "armored" version of the lightsuit, with elbow, shoulder and kneepads. It somehow reminded me of Tron's armor, which I saw in a picture of him taken by Kevin Flynn. Quorra carried that picture to remember about her creator as well as another picture of Sam Flynn, to remember her savior.

-"The disc's development took months. You would be surprised on what it is capable to do." Quorra mentioned.

-"Well, you tell me!" I said.

-"It's on the list right on the table." She indicated.

I picked up a sheet of paper which mentioned about 50 new functions: Shields, dual-wielding, dome-shield, reviving or revitalizing system used when the disc's user is downed or dead, which is limited into a 2-minute span before the user's body completely loses its temperature and decomposes. It was like a defibrillator, but in a disc. However, there were MANY functions, but I wasn't able to read them all.

Suddenly, Quorra threw a rifle to me and I caught it.

-"Gear up, we're saving a planet." She firmly said as she gathered weapons beside her lightdisc, including a rifle and a small gun.

-"…But, which side are we on?" I asked her.

-"None. We're neutral. We'll probably try the stupidest thing I've ever got in mind. I truly don't know if it'll work. You humans love fighting. It's in your nature. No offense, Joseph." Quorra whispered as she looked at my eyes. "We use words first… our last resort will always be violence, never use violence as your first answer. We will not be like them. I know you're human, but I know that you can control yourself."

-"You…mean we're convincing them by giving a speech? I got another question… how are we going to calm them down?" I asked.

-"You just got to call them out, with something strange for their eyes. You'll see what I mean." She winked.

I looked at my lightdisc, wondering what other secrets did Quorra programmed in it.

-"So when do we go?" I asked.

She took two batons and threw one to me.

-"Now." She firmly said. "Let's head to ENCOM's rooftop. We're gonna need a high altitude to fly these new lightjets."

-"New?" I asked.

We reached the elevator and walked up to the ENCOM tower's rooftop. From there, we jumped from the tower and rezzed our upgraded lightjets. I noticed a great difference in speed as it had 2 propulsion rockets, as well as an improved propelling system.

We flew over the city of Los Angeles, heading into the outskirts, crossing the United States… into New York, then heading east, crossing the North section of the Atlantic Ocean, and reached Spain, then Italy… and finally kept going past Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and finally reached our destination… Afghanistan.

-"Prepare for landing. We're deactivating the jets. As soon as we do that, grab your lightdisc and hold it with both hands and near your chest, that will create a shield that will absorb the landing impact." Quorra explained.

-"Got it. Just land close to me, okay?" I nervously said.

-"Don't worry, you'll be fine you big baby!" She joked.

Quorra and I derezzed our lightjets and landed outside an abandoned hut. We stood up, a bit shaken by the landing impact.

-"I said it because of you." I coughed as I rose from the impact's dust. "I don't want to lose you, Quorra."

-"You won't." She smiled at me.

We slowly moved through the sands of Afghanistan. It seemed so lonely… so quiet. I could even listen to Quorra's breathing as she aimed her rifle carefully around trying to spot any movement. Dust flying around us… the burning heat slowly scorching our skin… we felt no danger…

…Until we heard something fall into the sand. I approached the small hole the object created… and it was a bullet.

-"They're here." I gasped.

I tackled Quorra, saving her from a sniper's shot.

-"They're right in front of us!" I exclaimed.

-"How did they spotted us?" Quorra asked.

I searched around for anything that gave away our position and saw a UAV drone flying around a few meters away.

-"That drone. If we take it down, they'll be blind." I suggested. "I'll run up to them as a distraction, you try to burn down that UAV drone, alright?"

-"Sounds good to me." Quorra replied.

I rezzed up my lightcycle and drove around.

Meanwhile, as I approached the U.S. soldiers…

-"What are they? Friendlies?" A sergeant asked.

-"I don't think they are… nobody magically makes a motorcycle appear in the middle of nowhere." A soldier commented.

-"Why did you shot them? What if they are in our side?" The soldier's partner asked.

-"What? Now you're gonna tell me they're some kind of Navy SEALS?" The soldier asked back in a sarcastic tone.

Back to Quorra and me…

I approached the soldiers with a shield to avoid any misfire from them.

-"Friendly! Friendly!" I indicated.

-"They're with us. I told you, private." The soldier bragged.

Quorra placed on Kevin Flynn's coat, which she modified to also work as an optical camouflage, an invention which was currently in development by the military, but Quorra had developed it for just 2 days of experimentation. She stealthily walked around the U.S. Soldiers' outpost, appearing invisible, and then she positioned herself right below the UAV drone, avoiding its detection with the coat.

-"I have a shot on the drone, you tell me when." Quorra indicated.

-"Okay… keep holding." I replied.

I entered the soldiers' headquarters, and their sergeant introduced himself.

-"I'm Sgt. Anders, Bravo Team leader, now I would like to know your identity." He commanded.

-"That's not important. I'm sorry, sir, but I came here to tell you to stop this war." I said firmly.

-"That's very brave from you, stranger, but I have to refuse." He laughed.

-"You're being poisoned by the hand that's feeding you!" I tried to persuade.

-"Our government is making what it's possible to keep our country at full potential! Stopping this war will make us vulnerable to another 9/11 attack or something worse!" Anders exclaimed.

-"You don't know if it was planned or not!" I exclaimed and silence took over the small outpost. The soldiers were looking at me, surprised at my unpatriotic comment.

-"How do you dare question the United States Government!" Anders angrily shouted.

-"Not only your government, but also the Mexican, Cuban, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, British, Russian, and… many other governments! You saw what happened to Egypt when President Mubarak was in charge! He was slowly denying freedom of expression and promoting a State of Emergency law, extending the power the police has over the people… THAT increased their corruption, and your president is promoting the same things, slowly. The world is falling, sir." I told Anders.

He took a gun and aimed it at my head.

-"So are you…" he frowned.

I quickly wounded his arm with my lightdisc, inflicting a huge, burning pain in him.

-"Your patriotism has blinded you…" I said, looking at the wounded Sgt. Anders screaming in pain. "If you keep promoting this war, more people like you will die and there won't be any better future for your kids! Your president is Thomas Valentine, right? He has plans on taking EVERYTHING he can by the force. He tried to take my girlfriend away… sounds ridiculous, I know, why would he take my girlfriend? Well, she's an ISO, an Isomorphic Algorithm. She possesses great amounts of knowledge and other superhuman attributes."

-"And how are we going to believe you?" One of the soldiers asked.

-"Here's a recording of his last conversation with one of his secret supporters, or may I say, slaves." I said as I placed a CD which contained the conversation between our previous enemy, Evron Nacht, and Thomas Valentine.

The conversation was:

VALENTINE: I need the ISO for the evolution of this country.

EVRON: What are your plans for it, sir?

VALENTINE: She will be providing her knowledge to help us.

EVRON: She's just a girl, sir, do we need to...

VALENTINE: don't question my authority, Nacht. If I say that we need her, we do. With her, we will slowly take over the other countries and expand our territory for the good of our people.

EVRON: As you wish, sir.

VALENTINE: One more thing. Kill any witness, like always. We don't want anybody staining our image.

EVRON: Sir, if we kill any witnesses, we will be exposed into even more accusations by the people. Our "excuses" will soon be discovered.. I can assure you…

VALENTINE: If you question my authority once more, I will give you a 10 day punishment by locking you in your own installation. I have full control to it, and about the accusations, people are just animals, you just need to silence them if they become annoying.

End of Line.

-"And there are more conversations like this where he explains how to use censorship without the population noticing, and they're also planning on suppressing all kinds of elements that damage their reputation. An example of it can be the witnesses that he mentioned." I explained.

I took a small USB-like device, which contained pictures and documents left by the president inside his system. I plugged the data carrier into a laptop and displayed it for the soldiers. They were surprised by the evidence as well as the seal of authenticity only placed by the president right after his signature.

The soldiers sat on the ground, weary by the war they had to endure, and confused by the evidence I showed them. They knew that it was real by just looking at the seal and some recordings contained within the documents I extracted.

-"You realize that extracting confidential information is a crime that should be unpunished?" The sergeant said, maintaining his own beliefs about the government.

-"Do you realize that YOUR GOVERNMENT is USING you for its benefit? You're just the tool they use to extract Afghanistan's oil reserves. I recognize that you have fought with good intentions and I truly know that you deserved to be named heroes, but the heroes should realize that their government is lying to them. You guys… are filled with lies."

Everyone tried to find an explanation to the government's purposes, but they were all invalid.

I retrieved and saved the data carrier on one of my pockets and carried on explaining what Quorra and I had in mind. I deactivated all communications as well as the cameras in the soldiers' helmets.

-"Take it down and get into the outpost, Quorra." I signaled.

-"Copy"

Quorra took down the UAV drone with one shot and walked into the U.S. Army's outpost with me, then we talked to the soldiers.

-"We are planning to clean this world from all signs of violence, corruption and savagery. We want to stop this war without killing you, so we decided to explain the truth to you. I will ask you one question that can change your career and the lives of many people: Can you help us?" I asked.

-"We have families… we can't leave them. I don't want to leave my children without a father." One of the soldiers said.

I remembered about my parents, but something strange was that they never called me back unless I called them. They didn't seem worried about me being away from home… yet, they were very overprotective… but, why?

However, I also took in consideration the consequences that the soldiers could suffer by being with us.

-"We don't want you to join us in our journey. We just want you to stop this war and move your troops away from here." Quorra clarified.

-"If we move our troops away, the Talibans will take it as an advantage and they'll kill us." A soldier suggested. "Also, they are the ones who organized the attacks, there's no doubt! Their crazy leader is still hiding in a cave or something!"

I thought about his suggestion…

-"We'll cover your exit." I said. "And, about the attacks… you're all guilty in some ways. You're not a divided nation. We count you as a whole race: humanity."

-"That's right… and Joseph… We'll talk to those guys." Quorra corrected.

I whispered to Quorra…

-"But... we don't know Arab!"

-"I do know how to speak Dari, their language." She said. "It's never late to learn new languages in The Grid."

-"Sorry to break your illusions guys, but you'll never be able to convince the Army's patriotic captains and the Chief Petty Officer" A soldier commented.

Quorra and I stopped to think.

-"We'll have to kill them. I'm sorry, Quorra, but there's no other solution in there." I planned.

-"We can still talk. If we can't… we go on to your plan, Joseph." Quorra advised.

-"…alright then." I agreed.

I took my data carrier and used the small laptop over the sergeant's table to copy the evidence and data onto the laptop and other devices.

-"Spread the truth to everybody. Quorra, we're heading to the Bagram Airfield." I ordered.

-"Okay… and guys… you can count on us" The soldier said.

-"Great. Sarge…no remorse?" I asked as I helped him get up.

-"No remorse, son. Sometimes we need some desperate measures to make people understand." He said, forgiving my aggressive actions.

-"Great, now we will be going to…"

An explosion interrupted me and shook the ground.

-"Don't tell me that came from…"

-"The Talibans." A soldier clarified.

-"You stay here." Quorra ordered to the whole platoon as we both went out of the outpost.

-"You're not gonna make it alone!" A private said.

-"I know!" She agreed. "We need you to deliver the message and spread the truth. Do it for your country… not for the government."

Quorra and I rezzed our lightcycles and used our discs' shield functionality. A large force of hostile Taliban soldiers were converging into the area. They were about 90 or more.

-"Create a lightwall around the outpost!" Quorra ordered.

-"We can do that?" I asked.

-"The blue button on the left handlebar!" She indicated.

I pressed the button and a blue barrier appeared as I drove around the outpost with Quorra.

-"I don't think they want to talk!" I commented.

-"Hold on!" Quorra said.

She went back into the outpost and grabbed a white cloth and a stick to make a "surrendering flag", then she began shouting in Arab: "Cease fire! Cease fire!" and the Taliban soldiers stopped firing at us.

-"Hold here, I'll go talk to them." Quorra commanded.

-"…Please, be careful." I whispered as she walked away.

I just saw Quorra and a Taliban captain speaking. I couldn't understand a single word of what they said. I thought they were about to reach an agreement until the captain tried to punch her down. She covered herself screaming in Dari, the language she spoke to them. Apparently she did not wanted to kill them but they got angry at her requests. The Talibans were about to shoot at her but she activated a "Dome shield" which was a blue dome created by her lightdisc's contact with the ground. Nobody could enter it but I saw her holding her chest in pain… a bullet had pierced her lightsuit's "Skin Shield".

-"Quorra! Quorra, talk to me! Quorra!" I shouted with desperation, punching her dome shield.

The Talibans moved closer to the outpost and I was their next target. I was angered… I can't stand anybody who hurts Quorra… my true love… the only pure and real love I've had… No cheating, no lies, no impurity… she is perfect, and losing her is something that I would never forgive. I felt the necessity to kill the incoming hostiles… Quorra said that we had to use reason… but they did not seem to support reason. I had to take them down…

One of the Talibans came close to me, about to capture me but I sliced him mercilessly with my lightdisc, almost dismembering him. I saw my disc, not believing what I had done.

-"Plan B, Joseph…" Quorra gasped over her communicator. "Eliminate them…"

I rezzed my lightsuit's helmet on and attacked the hostile forces as they tried to stop me with their weaponry. My Skin shield was degrading slowly as the bullets impacted me. I kept fighting the hostiles back, slicing them like grass. I was filled with anger, blocking and smashing them with my disc's shield. My helmet began cracking as bullets kept impacting me. I saved my lightdisc and fired my rifle against them… spraying bullets and punching them away. My body augmentations gave me a slight advantage, yet, I was outnumbered, but I kept fighting. I knew Quorra's shield was soon going to deactivate, and I had to keep her alive.

I couldn't stand the heat that my damaged helmet created, so I took it off and left it on the ground. I kept fighting them off, suddenly, the U.S. soldiers bravely came in to help me, neutralizing the hostiles.

-"No! no! get back into the outpost! Get into the outpost!" I insisted.

They disregarded my orders and kept fighting. I had to realize… I couldn't have neutralized the whole Taliban group by myself, even with the augmentations, I was still outnumbered.

I kept fighting until a grenade's explosion sent me away. I felt the heat of the blast as well as the deafening sound of the piercing explosion. I finally laid down on the ground, looking at the bright sun thinking: "_Why is humanity so aggressive? Why is humanity always killing each other? Wasn't I supposed not to be like them? If so… why am I still killing? … Maybe there was no other option… maybe sometimes reason can't be the solution to our problems, maybe we will have to end all wars by force...but I promise I will restore the planet._"

I was about to get shot by a hostile on the face, until Quorra's lightdisc suddenly landed on his back, piercing onto his chest, killing him. Apparently… we had won the battle, yet the bodies from the fallen Taliban soldiers still pierced my heart. Despite their harmful actions… they were still humans… they were still my brothers… my own race, and killing them just hurts me, no matter how evil they are… my race was now corrupted by greedy and violent people. Probably…I had no other option but to save only those who are still clean and believe in a united world… in a peaceful and clean planet.

Quorra, holding her wound, walked to the hostile's body and picked up her lightdisc.

-"I… AGH!" She shouted in pain.

She placed her lightdisc on her back and fell on her knees, placing her left hand on the dusty ground and holding her wound with the other.

-"Can you… can you reboot me?" She asked, gasping and struggling for air.

-"I… I think I can…" I nervously answered, unsure if I could heal her.

I activated her lightdisc's panel, displaying her biological data including her body's functions. I saw a small red dot on what was the tissue in her chest displayed on the disc's holographic panel. I managed to regenerate the cells by replicating the others and "derezzing" the damaged ones so the new ones could replace them. In Quorra, it was an easy process as she was an ISO and technically the disc's healing functionality does the major part of the job.

She began to gasp even more irregularly, trying to catch air until suddenly… she just stopped gasping and fell to the ground.

-"Quorra?... Quorra!" I tensely tried to wake her up.

I took the bullet away from the bullet hole on her chest and the tissues slowly healed…

…After a few hours, she woke up inside the outpost. It was now alone, and the sun was setting.

-"You alright?" I asked.

-"Yeah… I…I'm alright." She gasped, looking around. "You… you killed them right? I allowed you to do so, I know."

-"I'm sorry, Quorra. It doesn't feel good for me, either" I sadly whispered.

-"Don't apologize." She said as she sat down with me on the dusty sand. "These people can't reason… they just want blood, pain, and take over everything."

-"Who? The Arabs?" I asked.

-"Everybody… The whole human race wants control… but I know that there are people who only want peace, those who want a better future for their children and others." Quorra said, with hope.

-"…What did the Taliban captain told you?" I asked.

-"He told me that the Americans started everything, He said that they want their resources. HE also told me that their secret groups will retaliate against the United States… they won't stop hunting them and making them pay for their actions. It's endless… They will be fighting each other until one destroys another…" Quorra sighed sadly. "Joseph, where are the soldiers?"

-"They left already. I told them to leave and to spread the truth about President Valentine." I said.

-"…Good. We need to go by our own. Nobody needs to know about our plans… I hope they don't betray us. Good thing they were young adults, because if they would've been veterans… they would've been angered." She said.

-"Yeah. Heheh… So…What will we do after making the U.S. Troops retreat?" I asked.

Quorra look out the microchip that contained The Grid, and stared at it for a while, then she slowly looked up to the sky.

-"We'll give humanity a message." She said, looking directly at my eyes. "The greatest and clearest message they would ever see in history. Come on, we have a war to stop."

We stood up and rezzed our lightcycles, heading into the Bagram Airfield.


	4. Episode 4: 5000 Spartans

In Bagram, Afganistan, at the U.S. operated Bagram Airfield. Quorra and I were aiming to stop the great Afghanistan War once and for all. We reached the entrance of the airfield, Quorra managed to remotely access the monitoring system, hacking the cameras by playing a looped video of the airfield operating in normal state. We used our "cloaking coats", which was the very same optical camouflage that was still in development by the Earth's military forces; However, Quorra developed it by herself and finished the project.

We infiltrated the airfield without being spotted or detected and reached the Bagram Theater Internment Facility and saw the cruelest acts of violence we've never seen before. Quorra witnessed it for a few seconds, but she covered her eyes and hugged me… it was too much for her…

More than 500 Afghans were detained in there, and we saw how they were whipped and tortured for answers, and the waterboarding torture technique was practiced on them as well. Neither the Talibans nor the United States were on our side. We were somewhat alone but, I don't think those people we saw before heading to Bagram witnessed the atrocities that were carried by the soldiers in this airfield. The Facility somehow resembled the rectifiers at The Grid, but instead of rectifying, they tortured people. They were small rooms surrounded by white walls inside a giant warehouse. Outside the facility, there were more "warehouses" and towers with soldiers and vehicles inside.

Suddenly, a group of soldiers walked by a place where there was low sound. We may be invisible but our steps can be heard, along with our breaths.

-"Quorra… hold your breath." I ordered.

-"What?" She asked.

I covered her mouth while the soldiers passed by. We lied on the ground, without moving a muscle, until they passed by.

-"Done. Move." I commanded.

We kept walking silently, invisible thanks to our cloaks, and finally reached one of the U.S. Army's generals. We followed him into his office and suddenly, we locked the doors and took our cloaks off.

-"What's this!" The general asked, surprised by our presence.

-"We came here to stop this war, and you'll help us." Quorra explained.

-"SECURIT…" The general was interrupted as I covered his mouth with my hand, threatening him with my lightdisc on his throat.

-"Listen to us, and you may understand." I ordered and he sat down. "We're going to stop this war."

-"Stop this war? How? Can you help us win?" He asked curiously.

-"Retreat your troops and we will also convince the Talibans to leave." I suggested.

-"Oh, you think it's THAT EASY? You know that there are secret groups around the world trying to annihilate our country?" The general said, angrily.

-"We will also take care of them." Quorra affirmed.

-"I do not receive orders from a teenager with a suit that has glowing lines! Now get out of here! I have a war to win." The general said with indifference and anger, looking at us as silly kids playing a prank on him.

-"You asked for it." I took my lightdisc, about to throw it at his head, but Quorra stopped me.

-"Oh, so you think we're kidding?" Quorra asked.

-"How do you dare talk to me in that way, young woman? Respect the authorities! You're the only thing your country has!" The general scolded her.

-"I'm not even from your country and I know that your president is betraying you." Quorra said as she walked out of the office. I followed her.

We walked outside and stepped on a humvee in the middle of the Airfield, where everybody could see us.

-"Attention, U.S. troops! Your government is deceiving you! President Thomas Valentine is corrupted and is planning to slowly take off your rights as citizens… meaning that you will be slowly turning into slaves!" Quorra informed.

Suddenly, the highest authority in the airfield, a chief petty officer, came out with a firing squad.

-"Kill them! Kill those scums!" The officer commanded.

Suddenly, before they fired, a soldier ran out of his barrack.

-"They're telling the truth! They're telling the truth!" He shouted.

-"Say again, soldier?" A soldier asked.

-"There's a live transmission of a recording where the captain talks about his plans with some kind of government-related secret group! I saw and listened to it! He spoke… ah… he spoke about his plans of slowly taking our rights as well as taking full control of the land and all kinds of individual property!" He said, alarmed.

Suddenly, another soldier came out of his barrack shouting the same things… many saw the transmission.

-"They made it…" I gasped, remembering the soldiers we met at the small outpost before arriving to Bagram.

The soldiers stared at each other and the generals as well as the high authorities in the airfield formed with small groups of soldiers.

-"We need to get out from Afghanistan and… AGH!" Suddenly, one of the soldiers got shot by a Captain. Everyone just stared, shocked.

-"You traitor! HE WAS MY BROTHER! HE WAS MY BROTHER!" One of the soldiers shouted with anger and pain, as he was being held from his arms by his fellow squadmates, then they hugged him to relieve his sadness.

Quorra and I stared at the line of generals and captains.

-"They're with the government…" Quorra gasped with shock.

-"TAKE COVER!" I screamed to the soldiers as the rogue team of high authorities began firing at their soldiers and us.

Quorra and I ran towards the corrupted soldiers with our shields and lightswords, slicing them down one by one and fighting the rogue generals back. Bullets impacted on our shield skin, slowly piercing it and almost reaching our flesh. It was a very fierce firefight. Some regular soldiers fired against the corrupt ones, killing them and sometimes, unluckily getting shot by them. Many soldiers were lost. We sliced and smashed down many of the corrupted soldiers, and destroyed their vehicles.

-"All soldiers… head outside the airfield, now! I repeat, get outside the airfield!" I ordered.

The remaining soldiers followed our orders and ran towards the airfield's main gate. We needed them alive. We stayed inside, fighting back the corrupt forces. We took a lot of damage from the bullets, but we eliminated major part of them.

-"We're blowing down the airfield!" I said.

-"What about the prisoners?" Quorra asked.

-"I'm sorry…" I gasped.

Quorra looked at me for a while… thinking… then she stepped out from cover.

-"I'm not leaving them!" She exclaimed.

-"Quorra! Wait!" I shouted.

I sprinted right behind her, trying to protect her. She just blocked all bullets with her disc and shield.

-"Joseph! Keep going! Block them! Don't return fire!" She ordered. "Cover my back and I'll cover yours."

I rezzed my shield and covered her from behind until we reached the Internment Facility where the Afghan prisoners were held. We locked down the doors to hinder the corrupt troops.

-"Kill anything that tries to kill you." I suggested.

-"Got it." Quorra acknowledged.

-"Just be careful with paranoid Afghans. Don't kill them." I warned.

We opened the cells' doors, freeing the prisoners, then we burned a way out the facility with our lighswords.

-"Run away! Don't stop! MOVE!" I ordered.

The Afghan prisoners fled away from the Bagram Airfield as we stopped the incoming corrupt troops that were already inside. I took my rifle and shot at them one by one.

-"We're destroying the airfield!" Quorra said.

-"There are too many corrupt soldiers in here!" I complained.

-"There are too many corrupt countries so get used to it!" Quorra replied.

I kept firing and changing magazines as they ran out of bullets.

I heard the enemy bullets piercing walls and coming right at us, but we had to blow the airfield up to ensure that it's clean.

-"Destroy every flammable object! Gas tanks, missiles, grenade boxes, ANYTHING!" I advised.

I shot a few propane tanks behind a truck from far away, blowing it down.

-"I don't think that's gonna work!" Quorra shouted through the deafening shots. "Can you cover me on my way to the rooftop?"

-"I got your back, Q." I said.

I covered her from the incoming corrupt troops while she climbed the wall to the Internment Facility's rooftop.

-"What's your big idea?" I asked her out of curiosity.

-"I believe I can fly!" She sang and laughed.

Quorra finally reached the rooftop, then she jumped and rezzed her lightjet, raining fire over the trucks and corrupt forces.

-"Down with the animals!" I screamed in anger as I shot a corrupt general.

I turned up to the sky, looking at Quorra's lighjet and then I spotted an AC-130 gunship, monitoring the fight.

-"Quorra, do you copy?" I asked.

-"Loud and clear. What's going on?" She asked.

-"There's a gunship right above you. It's monitoring everything. Take it down, and if you see another one, do the same." I ordered.

-"You got it." She confidently said.

She fired a missile at the gunship, directly hitting it at its main fuel tank and completely destroying it.

-"Down!" She exclaimed with success.

-"Was that the only one?" I asked.

-"Yeah! No thermals, no nothing but just dust and air." She confirmed.

Suddenly, a corrupt soldier shot my back, and… I just played dead.

-"Sir, enemy down over here at the facility." The hostile indicated.

I kept playing dead, holding my breath, until he turned his back on me.

-"Quorra? Do you see me with your thermals?" I whispered.

-"Yeah… why?" She asked.

-"Fire missiles at my position." I ordered.

-"I'm not killing you…" Quorra said, refusing.

-"You won't. Trust me, I'll be fine." I whispered back. "Come on, I don't have much time.

Most of the corrupt soldiers were converging on my position. I deactivated my communicator and kept playing dead.

-"Here. I don't think he's human… or maybe his technology is way too advanced and he never revealed it to us." The soldier suggested.

-"Take him to the lab. Prepare for an autopsy." One of the captains said.

-"I won't be your frog." I joked as I shot down some of the corrupt soldiers to open a path for my escape.

I ran away from the hostiles, shooting my way out while being protected by my now weakened skin shield. I turned on my communicator.

-"Quorra! Take it down! Fire at 'em!" I shouted.

She fired her jet's miniguns to the facility, damaging its structure, and finished them off with a missile strike. I kept running away from the target area, then I rezzed my lightcycle.

-"Take down this airfield!" I shouted.

Quorra fired at everything in the airfield, flying by while destroying all flammable objects to cause more damage.

Suddenly, some more corrupt troops came out from hiding and fired at Quorra with their Anti-Air batteries.

-"Gah! Taking fire!" Quorra shouted, alarmed.

I was getting out of the airfield but I turned back to destroy the AA batteries.

-"I'm on it! Keep holding!" I said.

I drove my lightcycle to the AA emplacements and sliced down one of their occupants and shot the other one, unmanning the guns.

-"Shoot 'em down, Q." I ordered.

-"Got it." She confirmed and shot the AA guns as I drove out of the airfield.

-"No more wars! No more fucking wars!" I screamed in protest, tired of the wars that humanity had among them.

I deactivated my lightcycle and fell on my knees.

-"It's over…" I gasped, tired.

…but a war like the one in Afghanistan can't be stopped by just raiding a small airfield, regardless of its importance.

While Quorra landed and deactivated her lightjet, U.S. helicopters and aircraft were approaching airfield to investigate the incident.

-"No… NO! WHY CAN'T YOU STOP? WHY DO YOU NEED TO BE FIGHTING?" I shouted with enragement.

-"We gotta go, Joseph! We won't make it with our damaged armors! Come on!" Quorra insisted.

I approached one of the loyal soldiers and told him:

-"We were never here, alright?"

-"Alright. We won't tell anything. I promise." The soldier said. "Go!"

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, News about us were spreading. We were spotted many times around the city and even during the AsterGen incident and the confrontation with the Umbra Proxima soldiers lead by Evron Nacht. However, some news broadcasts showed a leaked version of the footage recorded by us with the president committing his felonies while other broadcasts censored the images. People began testifying about our sightings. They described us as "glowing figures" and "agile people made of light". People also thought we were "extraterrestrials" or aliens but almost nobody thought about an ISO or the application of human augmentations, or the creation and materialization of digital objects.

Most people didn't know which side we were on because they only saw us, but they did not witness our actions.

After a few days of flight, Quorra and I arrived to Los Angeles, weary from the battle that we endured in Afghanistan, but we only cleared a fragment of all the violence that the world is experiencing. The good side of this is that the footage of the president's conversations was released to the military's network, and later it was leaked onto the open internet.

We deactivated our lightjets and landed on Santa Monica beach. We emerged from the water and lied on the sand, tired from our mission… feeling incomplete as we had only wiped out ONE SINGLE fraction of the whole chaos. It seemed impossible… The world was already condemned to death.

I sat right beside Quorra, on the sand, looking at the ocean.

-"We won't be able to stop them." I said, saddened.

-"We can't turn back either. We have our enemies now and if we turn back, they'll take that opportunity to take us down." She said, determined to keep going. "If we're going down, at least we will be putting up a fight."

-"So what's your plan? Nuke Afghanistan? I would support that idea so much." I said, nervous and tense while thinking about the future of planet Earth.

-"Why do you have to be so violent?" She asked.

-"Because I'm… I'm human." I replied.

-"You are human, not an animal like the government." She said. "Now, calm down, alright?"

-"Yeah… I'm sorry, love." I apologized.

At night, we were still talking, trying to calm ourselves down.

-"So, how was your school back home, Joseph?" Quorra asked.

-"Horrible. Tons of homework, tests every week… damn, and Mathematics was just plain weird, you know, imaginary numbers, parabolas, and quadratic equations. It's easy when you get used to it, though. What was horrible is how English class passed from being the best class into the worst. The teaches is some kind of dictator who doesn't listen to opinions… we gave her suggestions and she didn't even listened!" I explained.

-"That has to be horrible, I guess. Having a "dictator" as your teacher… ugh." She commented.

-"Yeah, typical animal." I sighed.

I remembered the time when Quorra said we were going out of this world… but… did she really mean it or was it the typical metaphor?

-"Quorra… what did you mean when you said we were heading 'out of this world'?" I asked.

-"Follow me…" She ordered.

We went out of the beach to the streets… but we were suddenly spotted by paparazzi from there.

-"You're kidding me, right?" I complained.

-"They must not know who we are. Move! Move!" Quorra commanded.

We ran towards the street before the reporters converged, then we rezzed our lightcycles and drove away to our home. We reached a dark and lonely area of Los Angeles.

-"Better deactivate our lightcycles and change our suits to stealth mode." I advised.

-"Why?" Quorra asked.

-"Thieves wander around these areas. Ever heard of the gangsters?" I asked.

-"Maybe in a book but… I can't recall." She replied.

We walked quietly through the dark streets, watching our step and covering our backs. I slowly got my rifle while Quorra had her lightsword ready.

Suddenly, we heard whispers and readied our weapons.

-"Joseph… I hope you know what you're doing. I seriously suggest we get out of here." Quorra whispered.

-"We took down a whole base… we can take down these guys in no time." I commented. "Don't be scared, I'll cover your back."

Every step we took had to be done carefully. Placing our feet in a position where no sound could be heard… or in a very slow manner. I felt a chilling sensation running around my skin… like if we were being followed or watched.

-"Listen, if they attack us, just take them all out… even if they try to run away, because they'll be calling their friends." I advised.

-"I got it." She confirmed.

-"Joseph, I have to tell you about my plan to go to…"

Suddenly, somebody covered my mouth with a cloth moistened with a liquid sedative.

-"Joseph?" Quorra shouted.

I had dropped my rifle in front of her. She picked it up and aimed at the hostiles.

-"Just come here, babe. No need to make this painful for you." A gangster teased.

-"I'm having her first!" Another gangster shouted.

A gangster rushed at Quorra and she pulled the trigger tight, shooting him on the torso and shredding him.

-"Wha… what have I… I'm sorry." She innocently apologized.

-"Come here, baby, we won't take too long." Another gangster teased.

Quorra shot another approaching gangster down. She kept shooting the incoming hostiles, then she took her lightsword.

-"Can't you just leave?" Quorra sarcastically complained.

She sliced them down as they tried to attack her, but suddenly, she discovered something she didn't knew about herself…

-"YOU COME OVER HERE!" A gangster shouted as he pulled Quorra's arm.

-"Get away from me! Get off! Get off!" Quorra shouted.

Suddenly, she pressed her hands onto his neck and forehead, trying to pull him away, but then, she somehow electrocuted him. She looked at her hands, not knowing what happened. She took her lightdisc and instead of having a blue circuitry, it turned into a white one. She didn't remember her augmentations at all… until that moment.

-"Who's next?" She taunted.

Later, I woke up... I saw how Quorra fought against the gangsters. They didn't seem to stand a chance against her. I stood up and tackled one of them, then I sliced him down with my disc. We kept fighting them off until the street became silent again. Their bodies were lying on the ground as if they were ordinary bags.

-"I didn't want to… I didn't want to kill them" Quorra said, shocked.

-"I know, Q. I know. Listen, you had to, otherwise they could have killed you." I comforted her.

-"Okay… okay." She sobbed.

We went back on track, but Quorra decided to go to her laboratory, below ENCOM.

In the lab…Quorra stood beside of what appeared to be a very unnoticeable door, which blended with the white walls of the room.

-"I want you to know that before heading into Afghanistan, I was working on something else, something that could give a message to the world, something that could unite them." She explained.

-"That being…?" I asked.

She opened the door, revealing an empty storage room and in the middle, there was a minigun-like steel cannon which had two capsules: One containing a blue energy cell, and the other one was empty. She took a syringe and gave it to me.

-"Careful... Take out the correct blood from my neck. It's supposed to be a silver substance."

I carefully picked a place where to extract Quorra's ISO blood… I introduced the syringe carefully into her neck and successfully extracted a small quantity of ISO blood from her.

-"I got it…" I confirmed.

I saw the silver liquid inside the syringe. It was opaque and really shiny. I realized that Quorra's circulatory system pumped ISO and human blood at the same time. However, there were some filters that separated both kinds of blood at a certain point.

-"Joseph…. Are we doing something wrong?" Quorra asked, hesitating.

-"Some things need a kick to keep functioning." I said.

-"No! better throw the syringe away. We're not heading to space." She said, confused and nervously. "I can't do this to humanity… it would be cruel."

-"Quorra… You came here with good intentions… you came here to change the world." I told her.

-"…okay… but… throw the syringe." She ordered.

-"..Why?" I asked.

-"THROW IT AWAY!" She insistently shouted.

-"Okay, baby… I'm… I'm sorry." I apologized and dropped the syringe.

We decided to head back home.

At our apartment… we found Sam Flynn waiting for us, sitting on the bed.

-"Guys… you knew that you're gaining notoriety now?" Sam asked.

-"Notoriety? How?" I asked.

-"You're in the newspaper and news shows… they refer to you as the 'People of Light'." He explained. "You were sighted in many places. I just needed you to know all of this."

-"Alright! Alright! Listen… we must not let this get to our heads. We're here to fix this world, not to be superstars." I said.

-"I'm confused… I… UGH!" Quorra complained. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ANYMORE!"

-"Q?" Sam said, concerned.

-"I tried to be nice to people, and what do they do? They wanted to kill me! They can't reason! THEY CAN'T BE IN PEACE! THEY ONLY WANT VIOLENCE!" She cried.

I hugged her tight, comforting her.

-"Easy, Q… we're all confused now, but we'll come up with something, okay? This world will have peace one day." I soothingly told her.

Sam also hugged her... trying to soothe her, too.

-"Quorra… we're gonna save this world, okay? We're gonna bring peace to the planet…" Sam softly said.

…Quorra calmed down gradually… sobbing as she pressed her forehead on my chest.

Later, I took out a whiteboard and a black marker. We wrote the possible solutions to world peace… we classified it between: Extreme, Difficult, and Slow. We had already written the following ideas:

1. A scaled, non-hazardous replica of the Tunguska event near an urban place to scare the population.

2. Completely digitizing the world.

3. Taking down the planet's communications as an unclear message to humanity.

But we had not thought about something that could actually help us clean the world… we couldn't do this alone. If Quorra had created and developed her inventions in the Grid, and later materialized them, why not do the same but with programs? Creating programs designed to fight corruption and bring peace to Earth.

I wrote on the list: "Create our own anti-corruption army."

-"Why didn't we think of that before?" I asked, surprised.

We looked at each other, in agreement.

-"Okay, I'll create the programs. You guys will take care of their supplies. They're gonna need some weapons so get moving." Sam ordered.

In about five days, Sam created about 5000 programs specialized in taking down any kinds of hostiles. They were agile, very observing, strong, fast, and intelligent. They could even blend with humans. Quorra and I materialized supplies that could aid them on their journey.

Finally… the programs were ready, with no errors. Sam took them inside a microchip until we arrived into a giant empty storage room below Quorra's lab.

-"Are you ready, guys?" Sam asked with a smile.

-"Punch it." I encouragingly said.

He aimed the digitizing gun into the empty room and entered the materialization code. Suddenly, many flashes were seen for a long while… light after light… it seemed like a light show, until it finally stopped. The lights had shut down due to an overload after the programs' materialization. We couldn't see the result… we only saw darkness until the electricity came back on…

we saw them…

The 5000 programs…


	5. Episode 5: Digitized

A normal day in the world… still, the same crimes happening on the country… and still, the authorities did little or nothing…

Until this day... when 5000 allied programs were materialized.

After exposing President Thomas Valentine's actions, many past presidents were also targeted as guilty of corruption… All the ones who were presidents were now untrustworthy… the government lost more than half of the people's respect in all America. People were now trying to overthrow their respective state government while the people in Washington D.C. were trying to overthrow the President.

Police brutality rates went up to the skies…

Months after the exposure of the President's actions…

At Sunset Boulevard, People were marching against police brutality all over the U.S., but the L.A.P.D. took violent measures against it, claiming it they did it because of the president's orders.

-"No more police brutality! Down with the animals!" A protester shouted.

The police groups gathered to take down the protestors, and eventually, began hitting them mercilessly with their batons. Teens, adults and EVEN a few children were present. Quorra and I were standing over a skyscraper's rooftop, right above them.

-"The cops are gonna beat them down." I said.

-"Be patient. We still don't know if they will do so, or not." Quorra suggested.

I saw a police officer hitting another guy with his baton, while the guy was being held by another police officer. He was screaming in pain and didn't seem like a drug addict but like an ordinary civilian. People that witnessed the aggression shouted at the officers.

-"I'm taking this guy." I said.

-"Hey… hold." Quorra ordered.

She pressed a holographic button on the dorsal side of her left hand. Apparently, she had added new functions to her lightsuit.

-"What's that?" I asked.

-"A command and targeting system. We're gonna need it to command the programs. It's simple, you move your hand and the system will analyze your ideas, and will display the order on the programs' visors." She explained.

-"But they didn't have visors... nor a helmet." I said.

-"They have contact lens visors and a retractile helmet, just like ours, and … by the way, I fixed yours. You dropped your past helmet on Afghanistan and I had to replace it with a new one." She explained. "Hope you like it, I made some improvements to it."

I looked down to the officer who was beating down the civilian.

-"Go." Quorra smiled. "I'll take care of the other side."

I approached and kissed her.

-"Be careful." I whispered to her.

I attached a grappling hook and rappelled down the building to the other street while Quorra did the same but she headed to the opposite street, blending in with the protesters.

Meanwhile, I landed on the sidewalk and freed the civilian from the police officers. I punched both officers and slammed one of them against a wall, knocking him out and dragged the other one towards me.

-"What are you gonna do, kid?" The officer asked. "I'm a high authority. My partners will beat you down in a while."

-"Bring them here, then. Bring 'em ALL HERE!" I dared him as I pressed a pressure point near his neck so hard that I left a bruise on it, and knocked him out. Witnesses cheered at my actions.

-"How's everything, Joseph?" Quorra asked through her communicator.

-"All clear. I'm going with you." I confirmed.

-"Okay… I'll…" Quorra stopped talking.

She heard a kid scream for his dad:

-"DON'T HURT MY DADDY! LEAVE HIM ALONE! DADDY!" The boy screamed.

-"Get back, Michael! Go back!" His father ordered him. "Don't get closer!"

Quorra wore her cloak and made her way through the crowd. The police officers who grabbed the child's father began beating him up. She could hear his screams of pain, and walked quicker until she reached the center, between the protestors and the police. She turned to see the father's son, crying while he saw his father being beaten up by the officers. Quorra, enraged, ordered them to stop.

-"Drop your batons!" Quorra ordered. "I said, DROP THEM!"

-"And you're going to kill us if we don't?" An officer mocked.

-"Cover his eyes." Quorra told to a protester, referring to the boy's eyes.

Quorra approached the officer, angered.

-"Wanna bet? Wanna bet that I will slice your insides out? Wanna bet that I will free this world from you, selfish animals?" She exclaimed.

An officer was about to hit her head with a baton, but she sliced his hand with her lightsword, and continued slicing down police officers repeatedly, taking down most of them and reducing the riot control group. She took the child's father out of the police's side and got him back to the protestors' side with his son. He hugged him. The crowd made questions to each other about Quorra.

I arrived and regrouped with her.

Quorra and I backed off towards the protesters. Before fighting back, she raised her left hand, which showed a blue glow in the fingertips, it was the Command and Targeting system she mentioned before. She moved her hand, ordering a regroup.

Suddenly, the crowd opened a path… it was a program, who was materialized into our world. We had materialized a total of 5000 programs thanks to Sam Flynn, but some were still in cryo-stasis.

-"Who… who's this guy?" An officer asked.

-"Welcome to planet Earth, program." Quorra greeted.

-"It's an honor Madame, and Sir." The program greeted back.

-"It's okay. Just call us by our names. I'm Joseph, and she's Quorra."

-"Okay. I got it." The program affirmed.

About 15 other programs began to converge into the area, wearing their suits which had blue circuitry. They all landed behind the protestors group and formed in a line, walking firmly, pulling out their discs and swords.

-"Target front, 20 meters, center." A program indicated.

-"Confirm as high priority, over." Another program requested.

I looked out for what could be a captain or a Chief. I found him on the very back part of the police group.

-"Negative. Front target is NOT the VIP. The VIP is located at the back of the police barricade. Quorra, can you mark it?" I asked.

-"Copy, marking." Quorra said.

I told her who the VIP was and she marked it.

-"Okay. Alpha, take them down, I'll head for the VIP." The Alpha lead program said.

-"Joseph! Follow me, we're helping Alpha! Move!" I shouted.

-"But these guys…some have a family, don't they?" She asked. "ALPHA! HOLD! HOLD!"

-"What? Alpha, hold! Hold!." The Alpha leader program and his squad held position, confused by Quorra's self-contradicting order.

-"Quorra, what are you doing?" I asked.

-"I don't want to destroy families, Joseph." She said, sadly.

-"Listen to me. I know it feels bad, but we have to make this world a better place for other families to live. If we don't destroy corruption completely, we won't be able to create peace." I suggested.

-"O-Okay then..." Quorra hesitatingly said.

She re-ordered the attack and we charged against the police officers, slicing them down one by one like crusaders in the medieval wars, bashing their riot shields away and exposing them to our lightswords. The Alpha leader went directly against the main target, a police captain, and punched him down until he was completely knocked out.

-"Clean this Earth!" I screamed.

We fought for hours. Some programs had very small wounds… while the police forces were "reduced to dust"… leaving only 2 wounded while the rest… you may imagine. They were "sleeping".

Alpha team walked around, checking for vital signs, yet, the wounded were so hurt that they were likely to succumb to their wounds, so they left them. Then they rezzed their lightcycles.

-"Job's done, Sir, I mean… Joseph." The Alpha leader told me.

-"Thanks for the support. You can leave." I said.

They left, riding their lightcycles, most probably back to the lab.

Then I walked around. The protestors only looked at me… I wondered where Quorra was.

-"Quorra? Has anybody seen her? Quorra?" I asked, nervously.

I used my communicator.

-"Quorra… do you copy? Quorra?" I shouted.

-"I'm on the rooftop. The tall building on your right." She indicated with a very sad tone.

-"Are you wounded or something?" I asked with concern.

-"Yeah… my heart." She gasped, sobbing.

-"Hold on! I'm going!" I said, concerned about her health.

I climbed the building until I reached the rooftop. I saw Quorra, sitting over a small ledge, crying. I knew why it was… because she has been feeling the same thing since everything started…

-"Quorra... I'm… I'm sorry." I apologized. "I… I don't feel good either, you know, killing never feels good no matter how much I dissimulate joy… I don't like killing."

-"I don't blame you." She answered. "I killed them too."

-"Because I TOLD you to do so. You didn't want to. It was actually my fault, Quorra. I didn't have to ask you for such bad actions." I regretted.

-"I stepped into your home that day, and we fell in love, but… I made you take the decision of cleaning this world." She sobbed.

-"Quorra… you gave me power to clean this, but I AM the one that is not using it well." I said, blaming myself.

She hugged me hard, crying over my chest. I hugged her back tight, trying to relieve her.

-"It's okay. We just have to think of better choices. If you don't want to kill, I won't force you to do so. I don't want to kill anybody, either, but… agh… come on, we'll talk about it at home." I said.

We went back home and lied on the bed with her. I hugged her to keep her calm and make her feel better.

-"Quorra, I know that you don't like this, and I don't like this 'war' either, but we have to change this world once and for all. We can't stay the same, with people living a lie made by the government. It's all about power. They don't take values or ethics into account." I explained.

-"But can't we convince them by talking with them or…" She said, but she stopped.

-"Remember when you tried to do that? I'm sorry but, it won't be successful, but it's good that you tried. You DO have values and ethics, as well as a good heart and soul." I told her, trying to cheer her up.

-"I guess we have no other choice." She replied, lessening her crying.

-"Yeah. Listen if you don't want to go, don't go, but it would be better if you do." I told her, softly. "I don't want to do this without you."

-"Fine... You do know how to convince me, do you?" She smiled, wiping her tears off.

-"I… I didn't even try… but…"

Quorra interrupted me with a kiss.

-"We're going up." She told me, smiling.

-"What?" I asked, confused.

-"Follow me to the lab." She ordered.

Quorra and I rode our lightcycles to her laboratory.

-"When you were little, did you ever dreamed in going to space?" She asked.

-"I did… and I still do." I said. "Why? wait… we're GOING to space?" I asked, surprised.

-"We're not just going to space… we're sending a message to humanity." She said.

I saw a tube-like device with a lens on its tip. It had the letters and numbers "SHV 20905" printed over it. The device was resting over a cube that had blue circuits around it. It was the digitizing laser.

Quorra took out the microchip that contained the Grid from a strange CPU-like machine, but what she actually gave me was a copy of the Grid in another chip.

-"We need this copy. We're heading into the International Space Station and we'll install the digitizing laser into the space station. Now guess what's next?" She asked.

I stared at her, clueless. She began to type a code into our batons, somehow, their circuitry began to turn white, and then she tossed one of them to me.

-"This is our ride to space." She said.

-"…What? That easy? I expected something huge like, a ship or something." I commented.

-"Don't judge a book by its cover, alright?" She told me. "This is probably the only thing that can take you to space… I had this planned for a long time."

-"And where are we gonna find enough power for liftoff?" I asked with disbelief of Quorra's success in her plans.

She smiled confidently, almost like a smirk.

-"You're not gonna tell me that these things have it. These things don't have…" I said, but Quorra interrupted me.

-"…You're not gonna tell me that I can't do a spacecraft that can reach space, excuse my redundancy, with high-powered impulse systems, and avoiding an explosion in midair like it has happened with other shuttles." Quorra replied.

-"Whoa..." I gasped.

-"Let's move." She said, determined. "We're heading to the Antarctic"

Quorra and I headed to the top of the ENCOM tower, with our batons programmed to rez up lightjets.

-"Shouldn't we take something for the cold?" I asked naively.

-"You already have it on." She answered, smiling at my foolishness. "Your suit has a nano-cooling and heating system. They're only changes in the particles' speed."

I watched my suit as I morphed it on my body, wondering how did she managed to do all those modifications, designs, and etcetera, but the answer was simple to me, kind of superficial and lacking of analysis, but my answer is: She's an ISO.

However, she jumped from the tower and rezzed her lightjet, and then I did the same, following her. She was carrying the digitizing laser on the trunk of her jet. We were going to install it on the ISS. We were now heading to the Antarctic.

Meanwhile, at the ENCOM Tower… Ed Dillinger Jr. was sitting at the meeting room, looking at Quorra and me as we flew away.

-"The ISO. I knew she was here!" He exclaimed as he began to desperately type a message to his dad, Ed Dillinger Sr. "Soon, father… soon. Be patient."

2 weeks later, Quorra and I arrived to the Arctic. It was cold, so cold I could even see my breath. I couldn't move my fingers and a single air current could bring my muscles down and cause cramps. However, I used my suit's heating system, and it was like walking below the warming sun of the American continent. Just like normal weather.

Quorra wanted to start off right away, but she wanted to verify if we had everything we needed.

-"Grid?" She asked.

-"Check." I replied.

-"Digitizing laser?"

-"Check."

-"Spaceships? Check."

-"Check."

Quorra took out her baton and pressed a button, making its circuitry turn from blue to white.

-"Joseph, press the third button on the right part of your baton. That will establish the configuration I did to it." She explained.

My baton's circuitry also turned from blue to white.

Then, Quorra ran with the digitizing laser, I followed her and we both rezzed our ships, running with the landing gear to gain speed.

-"Preparing for takeoff. Get some speed first." Quorra advised.

We went on full speed through the frozen land of the Antarctic, and then we lifted off to the air, gaining altitude. I saw that the ship was like a lightjet, except that the wings were somewhat shorter and aligned in the shape of an arrowhead for aerodynamic reasons. We reached a higher altitude, and we were about to fall back to Earth.

-"Punch the thrusters! Punch them!" Quorra shouted. "Put your helmet on!"

We wore our sealed helmets, then we stomped on our thruster activators and a powerful impulse sent us both high enough to exit the Earth's atmosphere.

It opened right in front of our eyes… this outer world… outer space… It's beautiful. So many stars, so many planets… Nothing compared to what we see in TV or movies.

-"Quorra! HAHA! WE'RE IN SPACE!" I shouted with excitement.

-"I see it, Joseph! I still can't believe it!" She shouted with joy.

I navigated around, making somersaults with my lightjet.

-"I can't believe I'm here." I gasped.

-"Just keep your helmet on." She advised.

-"Quorra… why did you chose the International space station?" I asked with curiosity.

-"If the government tries to destroy it, they will be destroying much more than just our laser." She explained. "I forgot something, is there some kind of communications satellite near the ISS?"

-"I think. Why?" I asked.

-"I hope I can expand the effect." She said.

After navigating around the Earth's orbit, we found it… the International Space Station.

-"There it is…" I indicated.

Quorra deactivated her spaceship.

-"Quorra? Quorra, what are you doing?" I asked, worriedly.

She hovered to the space station, carrying the digitizing laser.

-"Easy… easy." She whispered as she steadily placed the laser on the station's end, aiming to the Earth's surface.

-"Something's not right." I commented as I hovered to the entrance that lead into the interior of the station.

I went in and a crew member pulled me in.

-"WHO ARE YOU?" He exclaimed with panic.

-"Gah! Get off me! Get off me! Quorra! I got a problem in here!" I shouted through my communicator.

-"Joseph? Where are you?" She asked.

-"Inside the damn station!" I exclaimed.

I placed my feet on the crew member's pelvis and kicked him away from me.

-"I got him out!" I informed Quorra. "If one of you guys try to deactivate our device, your station will blow away… and the blast will not only take you down, but a lot more than what you can imagine." I threatened.

-"Why are you doing this?" A female crew member asked.

-"For your own good. Trust me, you'll thank me later." I told them, calmly. "Please, don't do anything to that device and you'll be okay, I promise."

They seemed confused at my change of tone. They looked at me as a threat first, and then they didn't know what to think about me. I just walked towards a panel that appeared to be the "master control" of the station.

-"Quorra, there's a panel that could link its energy with the laser." I informed her.

-"Is there some kind of slot in which you can place a chip?" She asked.

-"Not that I know… let me search for it." I said as I searched for the slot or something similar.

Then I found it.

-"Got it." I said as I found the slot.

-"Now insert the chip inside, when I give you the signal. Don't even dare to get it near the slot before I tell you." Quorra said.

She programmed and readied the laser for its firing.

-"Hold… hold…" Quorra whispered.

I nervously held position, waiting for Quorra to fully prepare the laser.

-"Done! Plug it." She ordered.

I inserted the Grid's copy into the slot. On the panel, blue circuitry began to appear. It was a silent process. I went outside the station with Quorra. She was sitting over one of the solar arrays of the station.

Meanwhile, at the ISS control headquarters at Merritt Island, Florida:

-"This is the ISS control, does anybody read me? Over." An operator asked.

-"We read you. This is Commander Steve Crenshaw." The crew's commander reported.

-"Any reports of unusual activity near the station?" The operator asked.

The commander didn't answer for a while, hesitating.

-"Commander, do you copy?" The operator asked again.

-"I copy, Control, and no, no unusual activity detected, over." He confirmed.

-"Roger. Control out."

At the ISS…

-"Are you out of your mind, Steve?" A female crew member shouted at him.

-"You listened to him! If we don't cooperate, they will blow us up, besides… I don't think he's bad." Steve replied.

-"You're not even listening to yourself! 'If we don't cooperate, they will blow us up' and 'I don't think they're bad', THAT GUY WANTS US DEAD!" The female member replied to him, angered.

-"Guys? Are you okay in there?" Quorra asked via communications between the ISS and her.

-"What? You're two? Oh, well how do you think we are, you bitch?" The female member shouted, angered at us.

-"Hey! Calm down! We're on your side! Listen, you're gonna feel shaky for a while but I need you to stay calm, it's the laser firing, nothing bad will happen to Earth, but it will change… trust me." Quorra explained.

The crew members tried to calm the woman down.

-"It's okay. You'll be okay, I promise. If we get to destroy the ISS, we will get you back to Earth before we do so." She said, comforting the crew.

Quorra ended communications with the ISS as she sat over one of the solar arrays with her, looking at the Earth.

-"What will happen to Earth?" I asked her with curiosity.

-"You remember how the Grid looks like from above, don't you?" Quorra asked.

-"Yeah, why?" I asked.

-"It's time." She whispered on my ear, with a smile.

The ISS Control headquarters began to notice the anomaly that they perceived before… they saw us, and Quorra knew that they were aware about us.

She walked closer to one of the cameras…

-"Houston… we have a problem." She joked, smirking at the camera.

-"Quorra, what are your plans, exactly?" I asked, scared of Quorra's "evil" smirking.

She "ran" and pulled me with her up and away from the ISS…

-"Down we go, love." She whispered as she smiled through her helmet.

She used a grappling hook on one of the ISS's solar arrays and pulled us to the Earth's atmosphere. I was truly scared of falling to my death.

-"Quorra? Quorra? What are you doing?" I asked, nervously.

She didn't answer and retracted her grappling hook away from the ISS, leaving the solar array damaged from the pierce.

-"Relax… let the gravity do its work." She whispered as we were slowly attracted by the Earth's gravity.

Quorra made a fist with her hand, and when she pressed it, a blue light was expelled from the ISS's tip and then a giant expansion wave appeared around it… it was the digitizing laser.

I looked down to the Earth's surface, when the laser hit North America, a grid began to morph on the land, not only North America, it was spreading to a small part of South America, then it kept on spreading towards Europe, Asia, and Africa, leaving only a section of it, out. Oceans were affected too, but the grid seemed to cover the Northern Hemisphere, but it left some spots intact…

I saw Quorra's face… she smiled, looking directly at me, and when I looked back at her, I stopped caring about if I was gonna die or not.

We entered the Earth's atmosphere. Somehow, we were not burning, then I felt something around us… it was a shield… some kind of transparent, blue sphere that protected us.

-"You're… the miracle." I gasped.

Her circuitry turned white.

-"We are." She whispered back.

We fell on what I saw as a street but it didn't crack like asphalt… in fact, it broke… like glass!

Minutes later, we woke up. I climbed out of the hole we created with our landing… I couldn't believe what I saw… it was… insane.

-"Quorra!" I shouted.

-"Yeah?" She mumbled as she regained her consciousness.

-"Can… you come up here?" I asked nervously.

She climbed up and looked around…

-"It worked." She gasped, surprised.

The world was now a hybrid version of The Grid. It was part digital and part natural. Quorra had brought it to our planet, from a microchip. It changed the atmosphere. It almost cleaned it from all contamination, but now, we were to use our change for the world's advantage. We could program anything in real time. We could literally create anything with our own hands! That ability was only limited to us thanks to Quorra's programming.

Buildings, cars, houses and many other things had blue circuitry over it! People did have their normal outfits, and all natural life was preserved, but it had a more 'digital' aspect. The sun was still visible but there were more dark clouds covering it, yet there were patches that left the sunlight in.

I couldn't believe it…

We couldn't believe it.


	6. Episode 6: Blackout

My world was now half natural and half digital. I couldn't believe it… the circuitry running through, and over the buildings, the streets with blue outlines, and we were standing on a giant grid. Quorra and I couldn't believe it… we were amazed… it was jaw-dropping.

…but after contemplating the amazing success, a small inconvenient happened… electricity, including the circuitry, went down because of the EMP the digitizing laser caused when it fired. The streets went dark… and our devices too. Communications, lightdiscs, lightswords, batons… we were now on manual, and more exposed to dangers.

-"Quorra, is your lightcycle working?" I asked.

-"No. It's dead. It was the EMP. I knew that was gonna happen. I don't think this is gonna last forever, but it could take a few hours or even days for the pulse's effects to disappear." She explained.

-"… It's so dark. Stay quiet." I suggested.

-"Hey, take this." Quorra told me as she tossed a rifle towards me.

-"Hey! You brought 'em!" I said, cheerfully.

-"As I said, I knew this was gonna happen, so I brought them, and I left an ACOG scope instead of the holographic sight. You know… no electronics." She explained.

-"Thanks. You do think about everything, don't you?" I smiled at her.

-"I try my best." She said, smiling.

Minutes later, we realized we had landed in New York, near the point where the laser struck the planet.

We were running through the dark streets. Gangsters and thieves took advantage of the blackout to steal belongings and murder people. It was chaos… like Christmas for them, but like hell for the civilians.

Quorra had brought a flare gun along with a small pouch that contained about 20 flares. She also brought 4 glow sticks.

-"Stay with me." She said as she turned her glow stick on and tossed one to me. "Keep it tied to your suit. We need the light."

I followed Quorra. We were looking around, covering our backs, and carefully walking. It was scary. Everything was so dark, so quiet, and sometimes, we could hear several screams in the distance, and sometimes close to us. My God… it was very scary. I could feel many eyes on us…

-"Quorra… eyes open." I warned. "I'm feeling less safe than how I felt when we had no glow sticks or flares turned on."

-"Easy… you'll be okay." She said confidently.

-"We'll stay in one place. I wonder how far we are from Central Park." I commented.

-"Great idea. Keep moving!" She whispered.

We kept walking through the streets. Suddenly, we heard steps… quick paced steps behind us.

-"Q. I think there's a guy on our six." I warned, whispering.

-"Keep walking… make him or her believe that we're not aware." She advised.

Meanwhile, at the Pentagon…

-"Backup power! Tell me the EMP didn't affect it." The Secretary of Defense, Tyler E. Marshall, ordered.

-"On it, sir!" A Pentagon worker shouted.

Backup power went on, completely powering the Pentagon's electricity.

President Thomas Valentine and the SecDef, Tyler Marshall, were in a conference room in private, talking about the events happening since Quorra appeared on our world.

-"What we're talking about is an ISO, an Isomorphic Algorithm. I thought my men were only talking about codes and numbers but when I saw it, or may I say 'her', this world went to hell." The president said.

-"I know what you mean, President. In fact, I received several documents from the Central Intelligence Agency about the appearance of such strange being. They reported that it had a high IQ, higher than the human's average." The SecDef declared. "I have a doubt, Mr. President, why did you refer to the ISO as 'her'?"

-"It's a girl. It has a physical shape, and human traits. She's basically now a human." The President explained.

-"Does she have a proper name instead of just 'ISO'?" The SecDef asked.

-"Quorra." A male voice suddenly said.

-"Excuse me… Who's there?" The SecDef asked.

-"Edward Dillinger… Junior." The voice said, identifying itself as the ENCOM employee.

Then, it was him. Ed Dillinger Jr. was at the Pentagon.

-"I am pleased to say that I know about the ISO very well." He commented.

-"Huh? Please enlighten us, Mr. Dillinger." The SecDef said gently.

-"Well, let's begin with the laser that was fired hours ago." He said as he took a paper from a portfolio. "It was a magnified version of the SHV 20905, also known as the Shiva laser. It's purpose is to turn matter into code, or 'digitize' it. The ISO and her partner used it to gain a field advantage against you. Basically, they can create and program anything without the use of computers!" He explained.

-"So, you're saying they just became some kind of 'gods' within minutes?" The president asked.

-"Gods? With all respect, president, you better be kidding me." Dillinger laughed.

-"Then what is it?" The president asked again, desperate for answers.

-"It's only a field advantage. The laser isn't firing anymore and the energy is temporary. According to what I know, digitization can't match Mother Nature, besides, only a part of the planet is digitized. In few words, the planet will absorb the 'digitizing' energy and the land will return to its natural and normal state." Dillinger explained.

-"And…In how much time will that happen, Mr. Dillinger?" The SecDef asked.

-"Approximately three days, but it usually depends on the laser's power source." Dillinger explained.

-"The International Space Station." The President cleared.

-"Yeah… I saw the transmission too, yeah, three or four days." Dillinger said.

-"Enough time for them to build everything they need to so they can finish with us." The President said with pessimism.

-"We're talking about code in here… just like if we were inside a digital world. Think… what do we do to take down a computer?" Dillinger asked, insinuating something.

-"A virus?" The SecDef guessed.

-"A computer virus." Dillinger cleared.

Later, back in the dark streets of New York…

-"Keep your eyes open." I suggested.

-"Joseph, to be really honest, I'm getting scared of this…darkness." Quorra whispered, scared.

-"Just keep it together." I suggested.

Suddenly, Quorra was dragged to the darkness, dropping her glow stick. My heart stopped. I felt like I had lost a part of myself. I didn't know where she was… it was all dark.

-"QUORRA! Q, hold on! Hold on Q!" I shouted in panic.

I kept looking for her, and I barely heard mumbles, like somebody was covering her mouth, then I heard her again.

-"JOSEPH! OVER HERE!" She shouted on top of lungs.

-"Shit… Keep shouting Q!" I shouted. "Quorra!"

I followed her voice. I went closer, but she seemed to be farther away… until I tripped with her. She was lying on the floor.

-"JOSEPH! WATCH IT!" She shouted, warning me about her kidnapper.

The guy that dragged was actually a gangster, he tried to stab a knife on my chest but missed. I took my rifle and shot him without hesitating… I kept shooting at him, regardless if he was alive or dead, I was so angered that I emptied a whole magazine on him.

-"AHHH! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK…. YOU!" I said, draining my anger.

-"Joseph! Joseph!" Quorra shouted, calling my attention. "…He's dead already."

-"…I know." I sighed.

I hugged her…

-"I got scared… I don't want to lose you, Quorra. I'm sorry." I apologized for my overreaction.

-"It's okay, Joseph. I appreciate every single thing you do for me." She whispered on my ear as we hugged each other.

Then she kissed me…

-"I love when you do that." I smiled at her.

We kept on walking until we saw a very old lamp post, illuminated by Quorra's glow stick when she dropped it.

-"Q… a lamp post!" I whispered. "We need a flammable object."

-"Bullets have gunpowder, right?" She suggested.

-"Great idea." I commented.

I gave a bullet from my rifle to Quorra, and then she opened it and took the gunpowder out of it and placed it on the lamp post's candle wick.

-"Now…how do we turn it on?" I asked.

-"Patience…" Quorra whispered confidently.

She placed her rifle's barrel close to the lamp post's wick, and fired repeatedly until the muzzle flash's fire lit up the lamp post.

-"…And here's our fire." She cheered quietly.

I heard footsteps coming closer to us.

-"Stay in the light and hold your ground." I advised.

Quorra and I aimed our rifles at the darkness, near the places where we heard the footsteps, then, a thief jumped right at me and tried to stab a knife on my chest but Quorra shot him down.

I saw silhouettes circling around us in the shadows.

-"Multiple targets." I indicated.

-"Where?" Quorra asked, tensely.

-"… I lost 'em." I said, fearfully.

Suddenly, Quorra was dragged to the dark by a hand that pulled her leg.

-"JOSEPH! NO! NO! NO!" She screamed in panic.

I took her hand, pulling her away from the "night prowlers".

-"Are you okay?" I asked her.

-"Yeah! What are they?" She asked.

I saw a corpse lying near the light. He had a bulletproof vest, a knife, a gun, a rifle and… a money bag…

-"SHIT! SMUGGLERS! TAKE 'EM OUT! TAKE 'EM OUT!" I said, confused.

We fired at the shadows…

-"Keep firing!" I ordered.

-"How many of them are there?" She asked with annoyance.

-"Just hold your ground!" I shouted.

I reloaded my rifle, and I still had 2 magazines left.

-"Reloading!" Quorra shouted.

-"Save ammo!" I advised.

We kept firing. The smugglers fell as they tried to reach us. It was disgusting, so much blood on the ground…

Later, Quorra took her flare gun.

-"Why didn't you thought of that an hour ago?" I asked.

-"I forgot I had it! You see, I was stressed, trying to survive in the bottom of a lamp post!" She answered sarcastically.

-"Sorry." I apologized.

She fired a flare up in the air, revealing a big group of smugglers getting closer to us. Some appeared to not know how many where they. They just arrived and tried to kidnap us.

-"DID YOU SEE THAT?" She exclaimed. "There's too many of them, we gotta go!"

Suddenly, a building's blue circuitry turned back on.

-"We're making a run for it!" She said.

-"Ready when you are!" I told her.

We kept firing until we were both left with one last rifle magazine for each.

-"GO! GO! GO!" Quorra shouted as she began to run to the lit-up building.

The smugglers chased us as we escaped…

-"Quorra! Our suits are lighting back up!" I said as I saw my lightsuit's circuitry lighting up.

-"Not only our suits!" She said.

Suddenly, a lightjet flew over us.

-"Quorra? Joseph? Are you guys there?" Sam asked through his communicator.

-"Sam? Sam?" Quorra called his attention.

-"Quorra! Is Joseph there, too?" He asked.

-"Yeah! Sam, we need extraction right now! We have smugglers chasing us!" She informed him.

-"Okay! Reach the Central Park!" Sam ordered.

-"Got it! You heard him, Joseph!" Quorra said.

-"Smugglers on the right!" I warned.

-"Keep going! Don't stop! Don't stop!" Quorra shouted as we ran to Central Park.

We ran with all our strength… I had so much adrenaline in me. It's like everything slows down when adrenaline reaches its highest level in your body. I just ran behind Quorra until we reached a digitized version of Central Park.

-"Sam, where the hell are you?" Quorra asked with tension.

-"I'm close! Hold position!" Sam advised.

-"You gotta be kidding me, Sam!" I exclaimed. "Quorra, can we use our lightjets?"

-"Negative! They're still dead as well as our discs!" She confirmed.

-"Damn it!" I shouted.

We saw the smugglers surrounding the park.

-"They're here, Q. Take them out." I told her.

I fired at the incoming smugglers. They fired their guns against us but our shield skin absorbed the bullets' impact, yet the shield had a resistance limit and maybe a "lucky bullet" could even pierce it without being hindered by the shield's fiber.

-"Gunners! Take them down first!" I advised.

We aimed at the shooters and neutralized them first. I reloaded my rifle and realized that it was my last magazine.

-"Last mag!" I shouted.

-"Same here." Quorra said.

We kept firing, trying to not consume all our ammunition, but eventually, we heard that click… that click that made our hearts stop for a second.

-"Out of ammo." I sighed.

-"Same here." She sighed, too.

Quorra saw a smuggler approach, trying to kill her with a knife but she punched his hand, making him drop the knife and used him as a meat shield against the bullets.

-"Sometimes, Joseph, you have to improvise!" She said, smirking.

-"Wait… we're standing on code, not on a physical floor! Quorra! Can you plant digital bombs?" I asked.

-"I think I can!" She said.

She crouched and began "typing" on the floor.

-"There!" She confirmed.

Quorra clenched her fist, making the 'code bomb' detonate, creating a blue-glowing explosion and killing a major part of the smugglers, but they kept coming, but finally, Sam arrived on his lightjet.

-"All aboard! Get in!" Sam shouted.

Quorra ran towards the jet, and I went behind her.

-"Come on, Joseph!" She shouted.

I finally reached the jet until an explosion took me down.

-"AGH!" I shouted.

-"JOSEPH! I got you, I got you!" Quorra said as she helped me get up to the jet.

Sam flew away from Central Park and then out of New York.

-"Quorra… my suit… it's not well." I told her as I felt a stingy sensation every time its circuitry flickered.

-"You'll be okay, the suit is trying to heal you but maybe there's something wrong with the healing process. You'll be fine. We'll get you checked out." She informed me.

-"Agh… thank you." I smiled at her.

-"Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. Sleep, Joseph. I'll wake you up when we arrive." She whispered gently on my ear as I laid my head on her lap. "I love you."

-"I love you too." I smiled at her.

-"Good night, Joseph. We'll tell you when we arrive to Los Angeles. Stay comfortable." Sam greeted.

Meanwhile, at the Pentagon…

-"Mr. Dillinger, how will we drain the digitizer's energy in less than 3 days? This is powerful energy we're talking about!" The SecDef asked.

-"Patience, Mr. Marshall." Ed Dillinger Jr. said confidently. "For all computer systems, there has to be a virus for it."

-"What are you insinuating, Mr. Dillinger?" President Thomas Valentine asked curiously.

-"There was once an infection in the Grid. I'll bring it back, but now to our 'digital Earth' and it will take care of the laser's energy." Dillinger Jr. explained.

-"Then we get the ISO." The President said.

Dillinger Jr. looked straight at him in rejection but didn't say a word.

-"Sure, Prez, whatever you say." Dillinger smirked.


	7. Episode 7: Contamination

Back in Los Angeles, California…

I woke up on my bed with Quorra sleeping on a chair. Apparently, she was looking at me sleep but she fell asleep while doing so. She seemed so cute, like a little baby in her naptime…

I stood up from my bed and walked up to her. I caressed her short, dark hair and it felt like passing my fingers through a field of flowers. Soft, delicate, good-smelling… I just want to be with her in a better world. I want to be with Quorra in a better world.

She woke up as she felt my hand on her hair.

-"Joseph?" She mumbled.

-"Yeah." I said as I smiled, looking at her bright green eyes opening.

I kneeled, placing my head on her head's level, facing her.

-"Are you feeling better?" She mumbled as she woke up.

-"Way better." I whispered.

I went closer to her, touching her nose with mine.

-"I miss your kisses, Quorra. I… really miss your kisses." I whispered to her. "I've shot bullets, went to space, flew a jet, bombed down an airfield, and did everything to bring light to these people but… I forgot to give a little light to myself."

Quorra's eyes began to drop tears of joy.

-"Is this how you wake up people?" She whispered, sobbing.

-"How?" I asked.

-"Making them smile." She whispered, with a smile full of joy.

-"Only you." I softly talked to her, wiping her tears off.

I kissed her. I remembered her kisses once more, how they feel, how they taste. I can't describe such experience. It's unique, magnificent… wonderful. It feels like if my body gets even more alive than before. I felt a warm sensation running through my spine as Quorra's lips touched mine. I felt her tears joining with mine as they ran down our cheeks.

We laid down on bed. I caressed her face as our suits "de-rezzed" voluntarily.

-"I will never forget your warmth, your fresh…delicious breath, your eyes looking at mine. All of that makes me feel more alive. You make me feel more alive." I whispered and kissed her back.

Our bodies went together, making love, but yet, I did not want to impregnate Quorra, so I used a preservative to avoid impregnating her. I didn't want a baby yet, was still not ready for such commitment. I felt her warm body over me, her soft lips touching mine, her breath caressing my neck like a warm breeze in a flower field. We NEVER looked at each other with lust. Instead, we saw each other with love and joy. She smiled at me and I smiled back. She never closed her eyes and neither did I unless we kissed. We looked at each other directly. It felt like true love. It FEELS like true love.

After a while of pure love, we just laid down together, looking at the ceiling, regardless of what was happening outside our home.

-"I love you, Joseph." She said as she gave me a soft kiss.

-"I love you more, Quorra." I smiled.

-"No, I love you more." She laughed.

…and it became a lovely endless battle of who loves each other the most but it was interrupted by my cellphone ringing. It was a text message from Sam that said: "Lab. URGENT!"

-"Quorra, Sam sent me a message. He's telling me to go to the lab, we better go. Get your gear, we're out in five." I told her.

-"Awh! But I want some sleep!" She whined.

-"HAHAH! We'll have our sleep, I promise." I laughed. "Come on, let me help you up."

We rezzed our lightsuits on and grabbed a rifle and a pistol along with our normal gear such as lightdiscs, swords and lightcycles.

Before I stepped out of my apartment, my home phone began to ring and I decided to take the call before going out. It was my mom, worried about my health, and there is where I decided to tell her about what I was.

-"Joseph? Honey, are you okay? I need to know that you're fine. We heard that the explosion began from your area."

-"Mother, listen to me carefully, okay? I'll have to be honest with you. I created that explosion. I AM one of the glowy guys that people are talking about. I need you to cut your phone's wires because this conversation is probably being traced." I said.

-"That won't be necessary." Quorra said as she pressed the phone's link cord, literally protecting the connection from foreign tracers.

-"Who was that, Joe?" My mom asked.

-"That was my friend. I can't tell you much about her but soon I will. I promise. I just want you to know that I'm okay and that I can handle all of this. I fired that laser from the sky, I caused the explosion, I caused the EMP. I CAUSED it all!" I said, relieving tension.

-"Easy, honey. I know. Your friend, Quorra, explained to your dad. I think she accessed to your computer and explained to him via Messenger." My mom explained to me.

-"She did?" I asked, surprised.

-"With detail." Mom clarified. "Go clean the world, we'll be fine here."

-"…Take care. I love you, mother. Tell dad that I love him too." I said, smiling as I hung up.

I turned to look at Quorra and hugged her.

-"Thanks Q." I whispered in relief.

-"No problem. They had to know." She said.

We left to the laboratory.

As we were on our way, we encountered many anomalies such as a building with some kind of yellow-glowing pixelated residues over destroyed sections of some buildings and its debris. People were running away from the collapsing buildings. They were sheltering themselves in small houses. There was panic in the air.

-"What happened here?" I asked with surprise.

-"It's happening again." Quorra said.

-"What is it?" I asked, clueless about what was going on.

-"It's a virus. It was part of the death of the ISOs." She explained.

-"…I'm sorry." I mourned.

-"It's okay, I suppose. Like you, users, say: they're in a better place now." She said, lamenting the death of her fellow ISOs.

-"We're making this virus pay for what it did." I said, trying to comfort her.

-"Don't worry, the previous virus, Abraxas, died long ago thanks to a system monitor. He saved me." She explained to me.

-"I bet he was very brave." I told her.

-"Yeah. Come on, we better move out." Quorra ordered.

Suddenly, a yellow virus struck the ground. Quorra and I pushed our lightcycles' brakes, but we fell.

-"VIRUS! VIRUS!" Quorra shouted. "Get back! MOVE!"

-"How can we kill them?" I asked, desperately.

-"There's a little code input in your disc. 2461" She indicated.

-"Two…four…Six…one" I repeated.

Quorra programmed her disc with the code before I even finished doing so with mine and threw it to the ground near the virus's position. The disc caused an explosion, derezzing the virus.

She saw a group of viruses closing in our position.

-"More viruses." She warned.

-"We better move into the lab." I suggested.

Our batons were thrown on the floor since we fell from our lightcycles. We grabbed them, rezzed our lightcycles and left.

We arrived at the lab, a bit shook by our encounter with the viruses. Sam was sitting over a computer, checking out the outbreak.

-"I guess you guys already noticed. A digital virus outbreak." He said.

-"Yeah. Yellow freaks all over the city." I said, mocking the viruses

-"You know what's curious? They couldn't have been materialized from the Grid by accident. We only digitized the Earth but we never created any viruses. The digitization process can't create viruses." Sam explained.

-"So you're saying that maybe somebody created them?" Quorra asked.

-"Yeah, somebody with the capacity to do so. It couldn't have been anyone from the government. They barely know this technology." He suggested.

-"A secret group like the Umbra Proxima?" I suggested.

-"Nah. They know about technology but not too much as to be familiarized with digitization or even the Grid." He said.

-"Somebody near you? Maybe an ENCOM employee?" Quorra suggested.

-"Yeah. You're the CEO now, meaning that you have the main power on ENCOM. Maybe one of the employees has been tracing us or helping the government. Everybody at ENCOM is familiar with the digitizing laser, aren't they?" I asked.

-"In the 1980s, they were experimenting with the laser. Dad was taken into the Grid by a Master Control Program which was developed by…" He stopped like if he had found something.

-"Developed by who?" I asked.

-"Ed Dillinger." He added. "I think I know who's helping the government."

-"Him?" I asked.

-"No. His son." He answered.

Meanwhile at the Pentagon…

-"Mr. Dillinger…" The President called his attention as they were in the meeting room.

-"Junior." Ed Dillinger clarified.

-"You're aware that you're destroying my country with these viruses? People will blame me for this!" The president complained.

-"Your reputation is ALREADY destroyed thanks to that ISO and the guy who is with her! The people already know your little plans you liar." Dillinger teased him.

-"Enough!" The SecDef intervened. "Mr. Dillinger, you have to do something to avoid civilian casualties!"

-"They won't be blaming us. We just say that we have no knowledge about the recent events and…just say that we're truly concerned about them." Dillinger suggested.

Back to the laboratory…

-"So how can these viruses harm people?" I asked Sam.

-"They can't infect people because they're not biological. They're just codes. Malicious computer codes designed to corrupt the Grid. They can infect our combat programs and…Quorra." Sam explained.

-"Just like they destroyed Radia, The Queen of the ISOs." Quorra recalled.

-"I'm not letting them destroy Quorra." I said, afraid for her safety.

-"And they're not destroying her." Sam said confidently as he took out a strange tissue out of a 'cryostasis cabinet'.

-"And that is…?" I asked.

-"Human tissue." Sam clarified.

-"The HECK!" I said while looking at the gross tissue.

-"Chill. It's a replica." He mocked.

-"Oh. What is it for?" I asked.

-"It's not exactly human tissue but it works like it, and it also works as an antivirus. Not that it destroys them but it keeps them away from Quorra's ISO part. In few words, she's like a human to them and they can only punch or kick her. Normal stuff." He explained.

-"Nice, but WE are the ones punching, kicking and shooting them off." I corrected him.

-"Oh, talking about shooting, here, load it onto your rifle." Sam said as he gave me an apparently normal rifle magazine.

I loaded it onto my rifle and shot a digital shield hanging from a wall, derezzing it.

-"Whoa. What are these bullets?" I asked Sam.

-"I call them 'Rectifying bullets' despite the fact that they derez instead of rectifying. They kill viruses instantly by inflicting a 'good code' in their malicious code." He explained. "Just shoot them and they'll derez. Be warned, some viruses might take more shots to kill."

Quorra grabbed a rifle and loaded it with "Rectifying bullets".

-"Now what?" She asked.

-"We're launching the anti-virus." Sam said. "I'm talking about you and the 5000 programs. These viruses will spread all over the North Hemisphere and we're gonna need all the firepower we have."

Sam took 2 gas masks.

-"Here. Take these." He said.

-"Why? There are no chemicals involved. You said it's only code… right?" I asked.

-"There were some strange fumes in the Grid when the virus attacked. They came out from debris or anything a virus touches." Quorra explained, remembering her experience with the Abraxas virus.

-"Hmm, well, aren't those masks worn by the British S.A.S.?" I asked.

-"Yup." Sam affirmed.

-"Fine. I'll take one." I said.

Quorra and I took our gas masks.

-"By the way, look at what I got." Sam said as he led us into a room with only a glass table and a chair.

-"Uh, a table and a chair? How is that special?" I asked, confused.

Sam pressed a section of the table, activating a holographic, real-time view of our position.

-"I can give you any information in real time, you know, coordinates, important spots, and many more things." He explained. "That's all. You better head off to the city. I'll rez up the programs."

Quorra and I left the lab with a piloting program. We went to ENCOM's rooftop, jumped from there and rezzed up a lightchopper.

Later, ships rezzed up in the sky, out of nowhere.

-"Alpha Six, this is Echo two approaching the city's center, over." A program indicated.

-"Copy. Annihilate all viruses you find in your designated positions. Quorra, Joseph, what's your status, over?" Another program asked us.

-"We're good to go." I responded.

-"I'm good too." Quorra confirmed.

-"Alright, we're dropping you near the Staples Center. Be sure to wear your gas masks! There are hazardous fumes coming out from the debris caused by the virus." The program co-pilot advised.

Minutes later, we arrived at the Staples Center.

-"We're here guys." The program indicated.

-"Ready up." Quorra ordered as she placed her gas mask on. I wore mine as well.

We went down the lightchopper via fast rope. A program went down the rope, he offered himself to help us on the way.

-"We're clear!" I indicated.

-"The Staples Center is damaged. We better get it checked up." I advised.

-"What's your name, program?" I asked him.

-"Maxus Deltirion." He said. "Max for short."

-"Alright, I'm Joseph and she's Quorra, your commander." I introduced them.

-"It's an honor, madame." The program shook hands with Quorra.

-"The honor's mine. Thank you." She smiled.

We went into the Staples Center. It was abandoned, dark, destroyed. It felt like if the walls had eyes. I felt like somebody was looking at us…or maybe they were more people.

-"Check the corners. Stay sharp." I advised.

-"It's so silent." I whispered.

We heard a shriek on another room and looked around quickly.

-"What was that?" I whispered.

Quorra took her lightdisc out.

-"Joseph, Max, stay close." She advised.

I saw a yellow-glow hanging from the ceiling.

-"VIRUS! VIRUS!" I screamed.

-"WATCH OUT! TAKE IT DOWN!" Quorra shouted. "Max! aim for the head!"

-"Copy that!" Max affirmed.

The virus landed from the ceiling, causing the floor to crack. It seemed like yellow-faceless program with sharp teeth and irregular circuitry running all over its body. It shrieked very loudly.

Max and I fired at it, making it derez.

-"Virus down." I confirmed the derez.

-"Hold. Viruses in the next room." Quorra warned.

We peeked through the door and saw the viruses absorbing energy from the floor. They drained the digitizing laser's energy from the floor.

-"Dillinger's trying to take the energy down. He knows it's a field advantage for the programs." Quorra explained. "Sam, this is Quorra. Dillinger DID send the viruses. He's trying to drain the digitizer's energy from the Earth and take away the field advantage from the programs."

-"I copy, Q. Do what you can against the viruses. If they drain the energy, order all programs to fall back into the compression chamber." He ordered.

-"Uh, compression chamber?" I asked.

-"Yeah. Programs are stored in there to replenish energy. They're compressed to avoid a system overload. Yet, they stay the same way inside the system." Sam explained.

-"Roger that." I said, terminating the conversation.

-"Get ready to breach in." I ordered.

Quorra and Max positioned themselves on the double door's sides, while I got ready to kick it open.

-"Heavy entry. Three, two, one…FIRE!" I shouted as I kicked the door open.

Quorra threw her lightdisc against one of the viruses, cutting its head off. Max and I shot the other viruses down. I got ambushed by one of them from behind. I fell and dropped my rifle.

-"You have to be kidding!" I said as I got pulled by the virus. It kicked me on the stomach.

Quorra took her lightsword and sliced the virus repeatedly.

-"AND STAY DOWN, you FREAK!" Quorra shouted.

She extended her hand to help me up. I grabbed it and she pulled me. I felt a small pain on my belly.

-"Ugh…that kind of felt horrible. Viruses could be good soccer players." I joked.

-"Aww. Can you keep going?" Quorra asked.

-"Yeah… I've had worse stomach pains before. This doesn't get the price". I said.

-"This is Sam Flynn. To all programs, destroy any virus that attempts absorbing digitizing energy from the ground. We have to keep the Earth digitized. If we fail, you'll be ordered to fall back. Flynn out." He ordered.

-"Weren't you supposed to give the transmission?" I asked Quorra.

-"Yeah…I guess Sam gave it away for me." She sighed.

We took our gas masks off as we realized that we did not require them.

We heard gunshots all around us. It was a full-scale war against the viruses all over Los Angeles. Programs were extremely precise with their actions that they completely avoided civilian casualties.

-"Feels like one of those World War II movies." I commented. "All the gunshots, screaming, damn, I think we just screwed up the world."

-"No, Joseph, don't think like that. We didn't screw up anything, it was Dillinger." She said, cheering me up.

-"Sometimes, I feel like killing every single person in the world…but that would hurt you and make me evil." I softly told Quorra.

-"It's okay, Joseph. The mind is a bit 'generalizing' when it comes to large groups of people. Most people in this world are evil… I truly understand what you're saying." She said. "Besides, I will always love you no matter what decisions you take as long as you don't kill everybody."

-"You two guys are in love?" Max asked.

-"Yeah. Isn't that awesome?" Quorra smiled.

-"I think so." Max commented.

I began to feel a desperate sensation, demanding peace. I wanted peace already. I couldn't wait. I just wanted peace, and the viruses to disappear.

-"Okay. Why don't we just boost up the whole operation?" I suggested.

-"…What are you talking about?" Quorra asked in confusion.

I smirked as I was about to explain my idea to Max and her.

Later, in Hollywood boulevard, a battle between viruses and programs was taking place.

-"We're taking heavy damage!" A program shouted. "Six, what's your status?"

The virus stabbed his hand into "Six's" abdomen, infecting him.

-"I think I already know. Wait, Two-Five?" The program leader said…

He saw his squadmate wounded in the middle of the battlefield.

-"Two-Five! Hold on!" The squad leader shouted.

-"I'm holding, sir! As much as I can! Agh!" He said, gasping.

His leg appeared to be derezzed.

-"My leg. AGH!" The program complained.

The squad leader pulled him away from the center of the battlefield. The viruses were closing in towards him.

-"You did good, program." He said, trying to comfort him and calm him down.

A massive group of viruses converged in their position.

Suddenly, they heard a scream from above a building.

-"!"

Three lightcycles went through the windows of a building, landing over a virus, and crushing him with the back wheel.

-"FLOOR IT!" I screamed.

I pressed the accelerating pedal, completely and mercilessly derezzing the virus.

-"Someone's pumped up." Quorra referred to me.

-"I surely am! I want my peace, I want my planet clean." I said, breathing hard with anger and excitement.

-"Exterminate them all."

Quorra saw the wounded program with his squad leader and called for extraction.

-"This is Quorra, we got a wounded program at the Hollywood Boulevard. I'll mark the location, over and out." She informed.

She ran towards the wounded program and his leader.

-"I called for extraction. You're gonna be fine, and we'll re-rez your leg in no time." She told the wounded program.

-"Thanks, madame." He gasped.

-"It's okay, just call me Quorra. We're all friends." She said, encouraging equality.

The viruses were converging on the area.

-"You're not leaving!" I chased a virus with my lightcycle and ran over him.

I shot the viruses with madness, spraying bullets and derezzing them.

-"Bring it, freak!" I taunted as I dismounted my lightcycle.

I charged against a virus, tackling him and shooting at its face repeatedly.

-"TASTE THE CODE!" I screamed.

Quorra, Max, and I fired against the viruses using our discs and rifles.

Quorra accidentally learned a new tactic when she threw her disc, clenched her right fist and lowered her elbow. The disc impacted the ground, causing an explosion and derezzing a great part of the virus group.

She smirked.

-"So… clenching my fist overloads my disc, and it tracks my hand's position, so…" She mumbled to herself.

She rezzed up her lightcycle.

-"We better move to another area." She suggested.

We followed Quorra. She threw her lightdisc towards the viruses and made it explode again, derezzing another major part of the virus group, Max and I derezzed the remaining ones with our 'rectifying rifles', and then we left to assist other programs among the city.

Throughout Los Angeles, heavy battles against the viruses were taking place among the different districts and landmarks, including the Hollywood Hills, where lightchoppers had to fire missiles against a virus-habited Hollywood sign. Los Angeles experienced a full scale war.

Meanwhile, at the Pentagon…

President Thomas Valentine was talking with the Secretary of Defense about Ed Dillinger Jr.'s tactics to absorb the digitizer's energy from Earth.

-"He's insane! He's destroying my country!" The president complained.

-"I agree with you, Mr. President. I'm ordering my troops to..." The SecDef was interrupted.

-"Your troops will refuse to act against the virus outbreak." The President said.

-"How?" The SecDef asked.

-"Because they're currently on hold." The president answered.

-"Well, I will do anything to stop this…AGH!" The SecDef was interrupted by a blow on his head.

It was Ed Dillinger Jr. with a rifle.

-"Mr. President… I guess we have the situation under control now." Dillinger said, smirking. "Calling me 'insane' was a bit hypocrite from your part, don't you think?"

-"Everything is fair in war and love." The president said with a smirk.


	8. Episode 8: An Old Friend

At Los Angeles, a full-scale war against the viruses was taking place. After a while in our motorcycles, Quorra and I went into a lightchopper.

-"What's the situation?" I asked.

-"It's not going good." The program informed. "The virus is spreading."

-"Sam? Do you read me?" I asked over my communicator.

-"Loud and clear. What's going on?" He asked.

-"Do you know about anything that could stop the virus from reproducing?" I asked.

-"I'm working on it! Keep holding!" He ordered.

Suddenly, a virus's disc struck the lightchopper's tail, making it crash.

-"We have a lightchopper down! We have a lightchopper down! Over!" A program informed all the others.

At the crash site… It was on an intersection. I helped Quorra out of the chopper.

-"Pilots are derezzed." She said.

The streets were all alone and viruses were coming for us.

-"Viruses. They're coming for us." She warned.

-"Something tells me that they want you." I inferred.

-"Oh, let me guess, because I'm an ISO?" She asked sarcastically.

-"Sometimes fame has its bad side." I joked.

We saw a massive horde of viruses coming for us. We were completely surrounded by them. Not even a small hole through the horde. Quorra ran and climbed up a building.

-"What are you doing?" I asked in confusion.

-"It's this or getting infected by those yellow freaks! You're coming?" She asked, extending her hand to me.

-"Ahh, hold up." I told her.

I saw my rifle stuck on the helicopter.

-"Wait, my rifle!" I shouted.

-"You're kidding me?" She shouted. "You have your disc and your sword!"

I decided to leave my rifle. She was right. I actually don't need it. Besides, I need to practice with my sword and lightdisc.

I jumped and grabbed Quorra's hand.

-"Okay, I guess you haven't climbed a building since a long while. Let's remember how to climb, shall we?" She said.

I grabbed a ledge from the building which was apparently a hotel.

-"Easy, take the upper ledge, move your right foot a ledge up from the current one and do the same with the other side. Be patient, there's no need to hurry." She advised.

After a while, I saw the viruses converging in the street and climbing up the hotel very quickly.

-"Can we reconsider the 'no need to hurry' part?" I said, tensely.

Quorra, ironically because of her advice to not use weapons, used her gun to kill the climbing viruses.

-"Didn't you say we wouldn't use our weapons?" I asked.

-"Until now." She indicated.

I broke a window with my foot.

-"Quorra, over here!" I called her. "Through this window."

I went in the hotel, and then Quorra came in right behind me.

-"We better get to the rooftop." I told Quorra.

The hotel was empty, with nobody in the hallways, or in the rooms.

-"It's quiet. Stay sharp." I advised.

We saw that the city was rematerializing to its normal state, meaning that the digitization was being reversed.

-"Joseph, look!" Quorra gasped.

-"Let them restore the Earth. It was just a small field advantage though. I hope programs used it well. I didn't even take advantage of it." I regretted.

-"We helped those programs so, we did something good." She said, optimistically.

Meanwhile… at the laboratory below ENCOM, Sam ordered all programs to fall back and recompress, this meaning that the programs will be back into their chambers.

Minutes later, the programs were in their respective cryo-tubes. Some had their limbs "derezzed" or were partially damaged from their torso. They were being restored.

Sam kept a record of the programs that were lost. About 150 programs were derezzed. That was a low number compared to 5000 but yet, their service was honored.

…But there was a small anomaly on the program counter. Sam created 5000 programs but the counter marked 5001. Nobody can create a program without digital authorization. Sam, Quorra and I were the only ones that could access it.

-"What the…" Sam said, confused. "5001?"

Suddenly, he heard steps on the main room of the laboratory and he took his lightdisc.

He quietly went to the main room, it was dark. All lights were shut and then he heard a step and threw his lightdisc to where the sound came from.

His disc was blocked by another one…

-"Who are you?" Sam shouted. "You won't get out of this lab if you don't tell me WHO YOU ARE!"

The strange figure in the dark placed his disc close to his face, making it visible.

Sam gasped…not believing what he saw… he remembered him from one of his figurines his father gifted him…

-"What's your name?" Sam asked, with his eyes wide open in awe, not believing what he saw.

-"Tron. My user is 'Alan one'." Tron answered.

Back at the hotel, Quorra and I were now on the rooftop.

I looked down the building. The viruses were crawling up to the roof.

-"My God. It's a sea of viruses down there." I said. "They're coming for us."

The first virus made it to the top of the building.

-"Here comes the first one!" I warned.

I took my lightsword and Quorra took both her disc and sword.

-"Try keeping them off the building! Avoid being overrun!" I ordered.

I jumped against the incoming virus and stabbed my sword on its head, derezzing it.

Quorra decapitated another virus with her disc. Suddenly, it felt like the building was crumbling down slowly, like if it had lost a floor.

-"Tell me that wasn't the building." Quorra said nervously.

-"Not gonna lie. That was the building." I told her the bad news.

While we were fighting off the viruses, a transmission came in from Sam to our communicators. It was barely clear as the viruses sometimes caused static.

-"Quorra, Joseph! Can you read me?" Sam asked.

-"Loud but not too clear, man. What's new?" I said.

-"Listen, every computer virus has a source, right?" Sam explained.

-"Make it short, Sam! We're in a bit of trouble!" Quorra complained.

-"The viruses have the source's IP address in their heads." Sam explained. "You should be able to obtain it if you…cut their heads open. Just bring it from one virus. No need to get a million IP address codes."

-"Okay! Can you get us some extraction?" I asked.

-"Yeah, I sent an old friend of my dad to your way. You'll be surprised to know who it is." Sam said.

-"Old friend?" I asked but Sam didn't answer back. "Sam? Sam? I lost comms with him!"

-"We have to hold!" Quorra said.

-"Copy, Q. Just kill any yellow circuited monster you see." I said.

-"Tell me we're gonna hold." She said, worried.

-"We will hold. I promise." I said as I looked at her.

I sliced down an incoming virus.

-"Get its address!" Quorra said.

-"You wanna date this guy?" I joked

I opened up the virus's head while Quorra covered me.

-"SURE! I Love 'em dead!" She joked back.

-"I better be careful next time I sleep with you." I joked back again.

-"You better be!" She laughed as she slaughtered the incoming viruses with her sword.

I took a small, red-glowing rectangle out of the virus's head.

-"I guess this is the address." I said, looking at the strange rectangle.

-"Get it into your pocket! I think we're jumping off this building!" Quorra said. "We're being overrun!"

-"I got it here! Move! Move!" I shouted. "Sam! Where is our extraction, man?"

-"They're everywhere! There's no time!" Quorra shouted.

Suddenly, a helicopter arrived and a program jumped from it to the building, making it crash against the building's side, killing many viruses that were climbing up.

-"We got backup, at least." I said.

Quorra looked closer to the program…

-"Wait… I know that circuitry." She said.

We saw him, rising to his feet with two lightdiscs.

-"Tron." I gasped in amazement.

He derezzed the viruses by throwing and swinging his discs against them. He's like a one man army.

-"Awesome." I gasped.

Suddenly, a virus pounced on me.

-"Joseph!" Quorra shouted.

It somehow got into me. It placed its monstrous hands over my head.

-"TRISHA! AGH! NO! DON'T LEAVE ME! TRISH! TRISH!" I shouted.

I began seeing things from my past like if it happened right at that time… in front of me. It felt horrible. That day…

-"TRISHAAA!" I shouted in pain.

Suddenly Tron derezzed the virus and carried me. We all jumped down the building while Tron rezzed up his lightcycle. He detonated 3 bombs over the building, derezzing the viruses almost completely.

I woke up, alarmed.

-"I need to find Trisha! I need to find her! Trixie!" I shouted.

-"Joseph!" Quorra shouted.

She held me on a chair. Sam, Quorra and Tron were all staring at me, worried about my condition.

-"Who is Trisha?" She asked.

-"Ugh… my… my head!" I complained.

-"Easy… I got you." She said. "Tell me. I won't be mad."

-"She's my ex-almost-girlfriend." I responded. "Last year, we showed our love to each other. If it wasn't because of her mother, we would probably be together… Please Q. You know I love you. I don't know what that virus did to me."

-"It accessed your inner memories, Joseph." Sam Flynn answered. "Accidentally, your inner desires. You see, they may be digital but they can retrieve mental information."

-"Trisha, eh?" Quorra asked.

-"Yeah. I fell hard for her." I said. "I'm sorry if I made you feel bad, Quorra. I don't know but… the virus triggered that memory up."

-"It's alright. Those kinds of memories are the ones that really try to kill you. They're really sensible. I've heard of heartbreak cases that involve suicide." She said.

-"Yeah. It's horrid. I couldn't breathe… I almost fainted when she told me it was over." I remembered.

-"Easy, Joseph. It's alright. Time passed… you're a better person now." She said.

Sam scanned the IP address code that we took from a virus's head.

-"This…is coming from below the Pentagon." Sam explained.

-"Well that's strange." Tron said.

-"It's Dillinger's son." Sam responded.

-"Ah. That user. His father programmed the MCP if I'm not mistaken." Tron said.

-"Yeah. According to this, the virus originated from below the Pentagon but probably materialize somewhere else. Anyways, we have to cut down whatever is down the Pentagon." Sam suggested.

-"Okay, we're heading straight to the Pentagon by air." Quorra suggested.

-"Okay, let's pack up." I said.

-"Not yet. We better wait for everything to 'turn off' and chill out." Sam said. "Besides… Joseph needs some rest. The memory that the virus triggered was a bit sensible. In few words, Joseph will not be 100% in the game. Quorra, you handle him. Try to clear his mind."

-"You got it, Sam." Quorra acknowledged.

Quorra and I went back home.

-"Joseph. I want you to explain to me… if it helps. Who is Trisha?" She asked.

-"Quorra… don't be jealous. She's just from my past." I said.

-"I'm not. I just want to help you out. If that memory was triggered, it means that the feeling was still haunting you." I said.

-"I'm gonna tell you, but remember that I'll always love you more than anything, Q." I softly told her.

-"I know Joseph, me too. I promise." She answered with a smile.

-"It was all in high school. I finally fell in love with a girl. Her name is Trisha. I was madly in love with her since I knew her. Suddenly, one day, she told me that she felt the same for me. We fell in love. We kissed so passionately… I felt warmth. I felt safety. I just can't believe she just left it off." I lamented.

-"Easy… it's alright." Quorra whispered.

-"Well… after a week of love. Pure love, messaging, saying her how much I love her. Her mother began to notice and placed limits, until one day, she stopped talking to me for one week." I said, sobbing with my eyes full of tears. "Then after that week, I asked her why did she stopped talking to her and…"

I was interrupted by my tears.

-"IT WAS HORRIBLE! WHEN SHE TOLD ME… I HAD TO FORGET HER! AGH GOD! THE… PAIN!" I screamed, holding my chest.

-"Joseph! Easy baby! Calm down! I gotcha, I gotcha…easy" Quorra hugged me.

-"Trisha told me that her mother prohibited her from talking to me. IT WAS HER MOTHER! IT WAS ALL HER MOTHER! IF SHE DIDN'T KNEW! IF I COULD JUST GO AND …AAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I shouted with extreme anger.

-"EASY! EASY! It's okay. It's over… It's over." Quorra said as she hugged me tight.

Sam suddenly contacted Quorra.

-"Did you found out what was that memory?" He asked.

-"His ex-girlfriend. He had a serious love issue with her. Can we do something to eliminate that memory?" Quorra asked.

-"Psychological treatment can take weeks. We can hurry it up if we find the source." Sam suggested.

-"We have to find… Trisha?" Quorra asked.

-"I'm afraid so." Sam said. "I found her information. Apparently she lives in Phoenix, Arizona."

-"Agh… do we really have to?" I asked.

-"Yes." Sam responded. "It's either that or live with that trauma all over. We need you 100% focused to finish off Dillinger. Trust me. We have more than enough time to plan."

-"Copy that, Sam. Quorra out." She ended the chatter. "Get some sleep, Joseph, tomorrow we're heading to her house."

-"…alright." I softly said.

The next morning, we departed to Phoenix via lightjet.

-"Alright. Sam, this is Quorra, can you give me her position, over?" She asked.

-"You're right below her. I recommend you drop in without parachutes, just gravity and shields." Sam said.

-"Copy. You're ready, Joseph?" I asked.

-"Okay! Three! Two! And FUCKING ONE!" I shouted.

Quorra derezzed the lightjet and we fell right in front of Trisha's house. We made a hole in the ground with the impact of our shielded bodies. Trisha went out to see what was happening.

-"…What…are they?" She asked to herself.

I opened my eyes, and she recognized me.

-"Joseph?" She asked.

-"Long time…" I smirked.

Meanwhile, at the lab…

Sam received a transmission from Ed Dillinger.

-"Sam. Your father may have taken ENCOM once, but you're not your father. I will take what is mine even if I have to kill everybody." Ed Dillinger said with a grim tone, then the transmission ended.

Sam sent another message to Dillinger…

-"The difference between my father and I is that he spared your life." Sam threateningly said and activated the programs.


	9. Episode 9: Haunting Memories

At Trisha's house after a hard landing at her front door.

-"Joseph?" Trisha asked.

-"Long time." I smirked.

…but what appeared to be a very solid and well done plan went wrong.

-"Joseph? Joseph! Your vitals are going down!" Quorra shouted as she stood up.

-"Trisha..." I gasped.

Trisha backed off as she saw blood coming out of my nose.

-"Joseph, what's going on?" Trisha asked.

I began to cough blood and fell to the ground.

-"Crud… Trisha… why?" I whispered.

It was horrible… I remembered everything… our kisses, our hugs, our words…

-"Qu…Quorra…" I gasped. "Need help."

I pressed my hand against the ground. My lightsuit was covered in blood stains.

Quorra ran towards me and held my hand while Trisha stared… without a clue of what was happening.

-"I got you, Joseph. Easy, just hang in there, baby. Hang in there." Quorra said, comforting me.

-"Is he gonna be o…" Trisha asked but was interrupted by Quorra.

-"What the hell did you do to him?" Quorra asked, looking at Trisha firmly.

-"Nothing! Long time I don't see him around!" Trisha answered.

-"Her… EYES!" I shouted in pain.

Sam called Quorra via headset.

-"Quorra! Joseph's memories were dormant and they're currently triggering a series of chemical reactions based on toxins inside his body. Ah damn… what was I thinking of? Sending you there was a bad idea" Sam shouted.

-"I'll pull him away from her!" Quorra said.

Quorra dragged me away from Trisha…

-"No! No! Don't move him!" Sam insisted. "If you pull him far, he'll be worse. Let his body adapt."

I was slowly agonizing… I felt colder as I saw Quorra's hand leaving my skin. I saw Trisha and remembered the day she said… "Forget about me." It was the most horrible day for my heart up to this date.

-"It…. BURRRRRRNS!" I shouted. "Agh… Gosh!"

I groaned, holding my chest in pain.

-"What the fuck are you doing to him?" Quorra shouted, swearing with anger.

-"Nothing!" Trisha responded quickly.

-"Unclog his memory!" Sam suggested through his communicator. "Tron, you're coming with me. We're leaving 30 programs guarding the lab.

-"Ugh… Trisha I need you to come over here." Quorra said.

Trisha walked towards Quorra.

-"I didn't do anything… I was just wondering what happened." Trisha said nervously.

-"Easy, Sammy. I'll explain it to you briefly. A virus triggered a dormant memory in Joseph's head. That memory included those days in which you were with him, until the day you guys decided to stop being together." Quorra explained.

-"We held hands…oh God… Make it stop… stop! I beg you… STOP!" I shouted.

-"Why did he bleed?" Trisha asked.

-"I'm not sure. Depressive toxins are involved so it's probably that." Quorra said.

-"Did he really felt THAT bad?" Trisha asked.

-"He takes love very seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if he died on my arms if I told him that I'd leave him." Quorra said. "I need you to put your right hand over his chest."

I felt Trisha's soft hand over my chest.

-"Sam…Sam…" I gasped with a smile, caressing her hair.

-"You okay?" Trisha whispered.

-"I'm…feeling better." I answered.

Suddenly, a virus walked up to her.

-"NO!" I shouted.

I flipped Trisha, placing her right below me while I was on top, protecting her from the virus. I stood up and slaughtered the virus with my lightsword. After having chopped off its head, I was still slashing its corpse with anger.

-"Joseph! Joseph!" Quorra shouted calling my attention.

She stopped me from massacring the corpse.

-"It's alright. It's dead." Quorra said, hugging me.

Suddenly, Sam and Tron arrived in two cars. Apparently, blue street racing cars.

-"Where did you get those?" Quorra asked.

-"We materialized them." Sam answered. "Damn. Joseph! We need to get you some medical attention! Get over here!"

Then, Trisha's mother went out of the house.

-"Trixie, are you okay?" She asked.

Remembering that she was one of the reasons why we couldn't be together, I snatched Trisha and took her to one of the cars' backseat.

-"Quorra! You come with me! Sam and Tron, take the other car!" I ordered.

I pressed the gas pedal deeply, causing the wheels to screech against the floor and then driving away at a high speed. Sam and Tron followed me.

-"This wasn't part of the plan!" Quorra complained.

-"Our lives aren't plans, Q. They're improvisations." I told her.

I drove at a high speed, drifting through the streets of L.A.

-"This is Sam. Her mother called 911 on you, guys." He informed.

-"Tell me this car has a NOS tank." I told Quorra.

-"Right back there." She indicated, looking at the nitro tank.

-"Nice. Trisha, better hang on to something tight." I said.

-"Another day in the office." Quorra joked.

-"Bring it, Mary." I smirked, daring Trisha's mother.

-"I don't wanna risk your integrity, guys. Sam, Tron… and you too, Quorra… You better get back to the lab." I suggested.

-"I'm not leaving." Quorra insisted.

-"Q. This is for your own good." I said. "Go, or the people might not trust us anymore."

-"…And then you'll kiss her?" Quorra said, saddened.

I went silent for a minute…

-"I'm not leaving you for somebody who broke my heart." I told Quorra. "I took you to Ireland, we fought against the government, and we did millions of things to save the world, together. I am not leaving somebody that actually loves me."

-"How would I know?" She asked.

-"Because I remember everything, Q. The day we first kissed, the day we made love… everything." I softly said.

-"I…guess you're right." Quorra said. "I'm sorry. I'm a bit jealous."

-"I know how it feels." I smiled.

-"Is she your girlfriend?" Trisha asked.

-"Yeah." Quorra and I answered at the same time.

We both smiled at each other.

I kept driving until we reached a safehouse at the outskirts of L.A.

-"I'll be at the lab." Quorra said. "Good luck, Joseph. I love you."

I kissed Quorra.

-"I love you too, Q. Never forget that." I smiled.

Quorra smiled and left with Tron and Sam to the lab.

-"Now what?" Trisha asked.

-"Now we're cleaning my mind." I said.

-"You got me already. How are you gonna clean your mind with me?" She asked.

-"Telling you everything! EVERYTHING I FELT SINCE THAT HORRIBLE DAY!" I shouted in anger.

Trisha just stared at me.

-"After you left the bench where you told me… I couldn't breathe, my throat closed itself and I just couldn't breathe. I extended my hand as you left. I was left alone to faint… I was blacking out until a friend arrived and woke me up. I slowly regained conscience and could barely walk back to my classroom. YOU MADE THIS TO ME! I THOUGHT I COMPLETELY FORGOT YOU! I CAN'T!" I shouted, crying.

Suddenly I pressed my forehead.

-"Trisha… run…" I groaned.

I threw a gun to her.

-"RUN TRISHA!" I insisted.

I took a gun and shot at her but missed.

-"You have to be kidding me!" Trisha complained as she took the gun.

She shot at me but my lightsuit's shields protected me.

-"How did you do that?" Trisha asked.

-"Well Trish… in a year, many things can happen." I said.

-"And you still haven't got over me?" She asked.

-"Uh…no" I answered.

I kept shooting at her, but still missing on purpose.

-"And killing me will help you get over me?" She asked, scared.

-"I don't know why I am doing this! I'm trying not to hit you!" I said.

Trisha dropped her gun and walked towards me, fearless and totally disregarding the fact that I had a gun and could kill her.

-"Sam… stop." I said. "Stop…"

-"Why? Why should I?" She whispered.

-"Trisha… don't… please." I begged.

She kept getting closer until she hugged me.

-"Drop it." She whispered on my ear as she took the gun away from my hand and let it fall on the floor.

She started kissing me on my neck…

-"Remember?" She smiled.

-"Yes…" I whispered. "Why did you leave me?"

She didn't answer and kept kissing me until she grabbed my jaw and kissed me on the lips.

-"Just like old times." She whispered.

I just looked at her and fell to the ground, unconscious.

-"Joseph?" Trisha asked, concerned.

At the lab, Quorra, Sam and Tron were monitoring my status. My heartbeats stopped… There was just a flatline.

-"Joseph flatlined! Joseph flatlined!" Sam shouted.

-"No… no! JOSEPH! No… no no no, that can't be… he couldn't have died. He…no…" Quorra said, sobbing.

-"We better go for him." Tron suggested. "Better on by air."

After a while. Trisha dragged me inside the safehouse.

-"I got you. I got you." She said, gasping.

She gave me some CPR but it didn't work. She walked into a room but Quorra suddenly appeared and literally kicked her out of the house.

-"YOU KILLED HIM!" Quorra shouted with madness. "YOU LET HIM GO, NOW YOU'RE TAKING HIM AWAY FROM ME?"

-"I didn't kill him! I just… kissed him. I thought that would've helped him." Trisha said.

-"YOU STUPID IDIOT!" Quorra shouted as she swung her lightsword against her.

-"Listen to me, Quorra! I thought it was the best for him! I thought that would've relieved his thoughts!" Trisha desperately said.

-"HE'S DEAD NOW! YOU KILLED HIM!" Quorra screamed.

Trisha fell on her back. Quorra was about to stab her lightsword on to her but suddenly, Tron went out of the safehouse.

-"Quorra! Trisha! He's alive!" Tron shouted.

Quorra and Trisha went to look. I woke up. Everybody was looking at me, asking if I was okay.

-"I'm alright. Help me up, please." I said.

Quorra helped me get up and hugged me.

-"I thought I lost you." She gasped.

-"It's okay. I'm better now." I said. "It's alright, Q."

Quorra and I walked out of the house, before leaving, she looked at Trisha threateningly.

-"Quorra… she's not a bad person. Let's just leave her." I suggested.

-"Okay…" Quorra agreed.

-"I'm receiving multiple contacts incoming. I think it's the police…and Trisha's mother." Tron informed.

-"Leave Trisha here and tell her to keep the information concealed. Like if we were never here." I said.

-"Roger that, Joseph." Tron acknowledged.

I went into my car and started the engines. I looked at a signal that looked like Trisha's car.

-"Easy… easy…" I said, focusing.

I saw Trisha's mother, along with police cars, incoming. I drove and drifted right in front of her car and crashed.

-"Finally." I frowned.

Her mother was not wounded at all. The crash just scared her and also bought us some time to escape. Everyone used their lightsuits' active camo, making themselves invisible. I activated mine and sneaked out of the car and finally left.

Hours later, we arrived at the lab.

-"Everyone okay?" Sam asked.

-"Yeah." I smirked, looking at Quorra as she looked back at me, both smirking with a sense of victory.

Back in Trisha's house, her mother stepped into Trisha's room. She saw her daughter staring at a wall.

-"Trixie?" She asked.

-"Mom… look…" Trisha gasped.

Both of them looked at the wall and there were millions of numbers engraved. Many of them were dates, anagrams, and mathematical equations.

-"He's… one of the glowing men. The ones fighting against the virus." Trisha said. "The ones we saw in the news, mom."

Back in the lab.

-"I think she'll get the message eventually." Quorra smirked.


	10. Episode 10: Dill

…It was the day. Finally, the day we cleaned a major part of the world. The skies were cloudy, everything seemed to be normal, but it was just the beginning of a dangerous journey, and we began with a big challenge.

Through communication systems…

-"This is Evelyn-six to Flynn-two, we're all set up." A female program said.

-"Copy Evelyn. You're coming with us." Sam said. "The other programs… keep your teams the same way."

At Arlington County, Virginia… Thousands of lightchoppers and jets flew over the city, among the clouds.

Meanwhile, inside the Pentagon…

-"Mr. Valentine, I bet you feel calm with the virus gone from your territory." Ed Dillinger Jr. said.

-"Right, Mr. Dillinger. It is time that we move to another plan. Something more… 'Organized' to kill all the programs and get the ISO to us." President Thomas Valentine said.

-"Programming an attack on their base." Dillinger suggested.

-"We don't know the location of their base. We only know that Sam Flynn works at ENCOM in Downtown Los Angeles but they surely don't have their base there." President Valentine said.

-"That's why I captured one of their programs." Ed Dillinger said as he revealed a captured female program with her arms and feet tied together. "How are you feeling, Alice?" He teased.

The program, named Alice-One-Five, was kept prisoner inside a 'sedating chamber'.

-"How is she going to be of service?" President Valentine asked.

-"Her head holds an IP Address code, which will help us locate the place of her origin, most likely, the location of Sam Flynn's base, which is the ISO's home." Dillinger explained.

Suddenly, a message appeared in Dillinger's e-mail inbox that was titled "WE'RE HERE". He opened the message and saw a transmission from Quorra.

-"Better be ready…EDWARD DILLINGER." She threatened.

The message ended.

-"Call the USAF, the Marine Corps… every single operating force and tell them to kill every single blue-glowing scum." Dillinger ordered.

-"But, they're currently in active du-" The president said but was interrupted.

Dillinger held a gun against him.

-"I said CALL THEM or I'll blow your brains off and take your position as President, you insubordinate son of a bitch!" Dillinger shouted.

The president obeyed Dillinger's orders and called for aid to all U.S. Forces.

Suddenly, Sam Flynn had taken over national television network and broadcasted a message.

-"People of the United States, we are not the enemies here. Your government has fooled you since you first thought. We, the Grid army, know that you realized that the government isn't right. Economic crisis among other problems, all of those problems were caused because of the government's greed. They want the power for themselves and rarely share it with the people, but they don't know something: The people are where their power relies. They will try to buy you, to convince you that they have changed only to benefit themselves without thanking you. We are not a new kind of government, we only make justice. We only want change, and we will put up a fight until the government operates in a fair way. Today, if you see blue objects in the sky, don't be alarmed but we recommend you stay home, lock your doors and stay safe. To all U.S. Forces and authorities, I hope you can help us, if you fight against us, you will perish along with your corrupt government." Sam Flynn spoke.

Suddenly, two lightchoppers flew over the Pentagon.

-"Dillinger! Get out with your hands up!" Tron ordered.

There was a great silence as the personnel from the Pentagon looked out their windows. They were completely surrounded by programs.

-"All Pentagon personnel step out of the installation. Your president has gone rogue and is supplied by a man with the name Edward Dillinger Junior." Tron indicated.

Suddenly, some of the security guards fired at the programs but they were eventually sliced down by some of them.

-"Rest in peace. Your service will be honored." The programs said, honoring and respecting the lives of their enemies as they killed them.

Many civilians as well as low-priority workers at the Pentagon were identified by the programs and were left free.

-"Evelyn-six this is Tron, how's the West Wing? Over." Tron asked.

-"It's hell down here! There are viruses coming out of the ground! I think we can hold! We're holding pretty well. Over." Evelyn reported.

-"Roger, Evelyn. I'll send a few more programs up to your position." Tron said and ordered a small part of his team to assist Evelyn.

-"Seismic activity right below us! Everybody stay put!" Sam said.

-"Stay put!" Tron ordered.

All programs remained still, listening to the scary sound of something huge below the ground they were standing on.

-"What the crud is that, Tron?" Sam asked.

-"No idea, Sam. Stay put." Tron said.

Suddenly a program screamed.

-"VIRUSES! THEY'RE ALL BELOW THE PENTAGON!" The program screamed in fear as he came from the West Wing.

-"Kill the viruses! Slice their hands off!" Sam ordered.

-"Where's Quorra and Joseph?" Tron asked.

Sam looked around and saw us…nowhere.

-"I thought they were with Delta squad." Sam said. "Joseph? Quorra? Do you read me? Over."

-"Soldiers incoming!" A program shouted.

Many helicopters came towards us.

-"…No way, I thought they were convinced by the guy we met at Afghanistan!" Sam complained.

Suddenly, one of the helicopters crashed against the other and fell to the Pentagon.

-"What the…?" Sam gasped.

Suddenly, other soldiers came by our side and fired at the incoming soldiers. Apparently we had U.S. loyalists on our side.

An intense and huge fight broke up between programs and the Government's forces. Programs slaying soldiers with their swords and discs, loyalists killing corrupted forces. Programs partially or completely derezzed, soldiers slaughtered.

-"Marines, pull back!" Tron ordered to the allied U.S. Marines.

-"Negative! You may be a program but I also want my country back!" The U.S. Marine captain said as he killed viruses and corrupted soldiers.

Both sides were losing, but programs overran the West wing meanwhile our group at the East Wing was perishing along with their enemies.

-"We're losing too much programs here! Pull back a little!" Sam suggested.

But while the battle ensued in the surface of Earth, in space, A user and an ISO were executing one of their old plans: Quorra and me. We were about to shoot the Earth with the digitizing laser…again.

-"Chip's engaged, sat's clean and laser ready to be fired. Punch it, Q." I confirmed.

-"Got it, come out of the sat. Over." Quorra ordered.

-"Copy, I'm on my way, Q." I said.

I floated up through the cold, zero-gravity of space until I went outside the satellite with Quorra.

-"Look at that, Chaos down in that planet and we're over here, in the silence of space, waiting for the satellite to charge up." Quorra said.

-"Yeah. Only you and me. I never thought I would've been with my love up here… twice." I said.

-"And you know what I miss? Your kisses." She whispered.

-"…I'll kiss you when we're back to Earth, I promise." I said.

-"No." She replied.

-"…Why not?" I asked, concerned.

-"I want to kiss you here. The first kiss in space." She said.

Quorra began to pull out my helmet but I stopped her.

-"Wait! What if I die?" I asked.

-"Trust me, you won't. Only keep your oxygen tank online." She said.

My oxygen tank was activated. A built in tank inside my body especially designed for space operations. It was secretly implanted during the time of my human augmentation. She took my helmet off.

-"Just… trust me." She whispered.

Then… she did the same with her helmet and nothing happened to her. I thought because she was an ISO but she also needed oxygen, so I discarded that reason.

-"Your skin shield protects you from dehydration, and any other effects of zero gravity, so you don't have to worry. Call it your second skin as it is already embedded in your primary one." Quorra explained.

-"Wow." I gasped. "I can't believe I'm… I'm changing."

-"No matter how much you change, I will keep loving you, because I know that nobody stays the same. We grow up… but one of the things that we keep is love." She whispered.

-"…Thank you." I whispered.

-"For what?" Quorra asked.

-"For staying with me. For being honest. For appreciating me. Now I know that… you're the perfect one." I whispered, looking at her eyes.

-"Joseph… I'm not perfect… but… I try my best." She said, with tears coming out of her eyes and floating into space. One of them landed on my eye and I giggled.

Suddenly, I kissed her. I couldn't help my tears of joy. How could I cry in space, where there's no oxygen? I didn't know until I found out that our suits created a shield due to the emotional burst. The suit reacted to our emotions.

-"Joseph… whatever happens in here… nobody will know and we shall not tell anybody." Quorra said.

-"What… what?" I mumbled in confusion.

-"You're more than just a human, now." She said as she held my hand. "…and I'm more than just an ISO."

-"What are we? Gods or something?" I asked.

-"No. We're not immortal. We have a lot of power inside our bodies, we have to use it responsibly and only for the Earth's greater good." Quorra said.

-"…I don't feel any different." I said, confused, looking at my hand.

-"It's dormant. Now, I want you to put EVERY single piece of your heart in this." She said, looking straight at my eyes. "I really love you, you know that?"

-"I love you too, Quorra. I don't care how much power we have inside us. That will not change my love for you. I will not exchange love for power." I said, caressing her face.

The digitizing laser was finally charged.

-"...Place your hand on the satellite." She said.

I obeyed her as she did the same thing, and then…she kissed me.

Down on Earth, at the Pentagon, The war was raging on and suddenly, everyone stopped.

-"What the fuck… is that?" A soldier asked.

There was a light blue glow up in the sky, among the clouds.

Back to space…

Quorra and I passionately kissed each other until we finally lost all our breath. I looked around, and the whole satellite had blue circuitry all around it.

-"Time to make a difference." Quorra smiled.

I saw her circuitry, it wasn't blue anymore, it was white, just like mine.

She jumped off the satellite and I jumped right behind her. She pressed a remote control and fired the laser directly to the Pentagon, striking it and partially blowing up half the installation's "A" ring (The central ring of the Pentagon).

Quorra extended a pair of blue, jet-like wings that expelled an intense white light and suddenly I did too, without even noticing, and then morphed back our helmets.

-"It's gonna be a hard landing." She said.

From the bottom of the Pentagon, everyone stopped fighting and saw a huge white glow descending right beside the digitizing laser.

-"No way." Tron gasped, looking at the intense white light coming down. He knew it was us.

Quorra slowed down with her wings and took my hands.

-"We're landing together." She whispered.

A blue shield morphed around us and protected us against the hard landing in front of the Pentagon's East wing.

-"Everybody stand back!" A soldier commanded.

I was there, lying in the crater Quorra and I made with our impact. I heard nothing but a small echo from my communication device. I didn't have my helmet on. The smoke was covering the crater.

-"There will be cops, soldiers, and we will be all around the world, destroying those who only want power, those who only want money. We will clean this world, just like we promised to each other. This planet has been the victim of humanity's greed and hunger for violence. We will stop every single animal in this planet and make this world a better place for humans, only for those who mean no harm to anybody." Quorra spoke.

Quorra powered up two lightswords and told me to do the same.

We both ran with all our might against the government's corrupted forces, slicing and stabbing them with our swords. Their bullets did little or no damage to us.

-"TAKE 'EM ALL DOWN!" Tron ordered.

Quorra and I discovered a new ability in our suits. We could now repurpose or 'rectify' a virus by overriding its code for a brief period of time. We repurposed them as bombs so they could self-destruct themselves among the corrupted government soldiers.

The North and South wings were being taken down by other programs in lightjets and choppers.

-"This is Evelyn-six, You may wanna hear the status, Flynn." She suggested. "357 programs derezzed and counting."

-"You gotta be kidding, Evelyn." Sam gasped.

-"I wish, but these guys are as tough as nails." Evelyn said.

-"But we're tougher than these muppets!" Sam insisted.

We kept fighting. Quorra smashed the ground with her lightdisc, causing a wall of digital code to appear, reflecting the incoming bullets back to their shooters.

I took a virus under my control and commanded it to send the other viruses into the Pentagon.

-"New objective." Sam said.

-"Which one?" I asked.

-"We have to destroy the Pentagon." He said.

Suddenly, as we were fighting, 2 heavily mutated viruses tackled me and took Quorra with them.

-"JOSEPH! JOSEPH!" She screamed.

-"QUORRA! LET HER GO! SOMEBODY TAKE THEM DOWN!" I shouted.

…but discs and swords weren't enough.

-"Quorra's inside the Pentagon! I repeat, SHE'S INSIDE THE PENTAGON. Do not destroy it!" I ordered.

-"Joseph! Where are you going?" Sam asked.

-"I'm going for her." I said.

-"Hold on. Tron! You're with me!" Sam ordered.

-"No! You come with me and this whole operation will die! I'll go myself. Thanks anyways." I said.

-"Don't lose her, bro. Whatever happens down there… just don't lose her." Sam insisted.

-"I made her a promise, Sam." I said.

I ran into the Pentagon, taking control of viruses as explosive meat shields, or code shields, pushing them and making them explode as I went into the Pentagon slaughtering other viruses and corrupted soldiers.

I went in. Everything was silent. The offices evacuated. No more people. It was all empty.

-"Where could they have taken Quorra?" I asked myself.

I saw a camera.

-"Cameras. Maybe I can…" I whispered.

I clenched my fist and closed my eyes, and then a strange blue wave extended across the room, and I waited until I just couldn't produce more energy, then I released it. Electricity went down, the cameras exploded and I blacked out. The EMP I created consumed my vital energies.

I woke up hours later. I thought I had been taken prisoner as I felt my hands tied up, but my hands were actually free and many guard corpses laid around me.

-"What the hell happened here?" I asked myself softly.

I saw a hooded man behind me disappearing.

-"Ugh. My…my head." I complained as I held my head.

I felt dizzy, weak and 'out of sync', but I still had Quorra in my mind.

-"Quorra… ahh. Where are you?" I whispered.

-"I…Joseph." I heard her over my communicator.

-"Q? You there?" I asked, concerned.

-"Yeah. I'm barely hanging." She said with a weak voice "They have me in this torture machine. It shocks me every time I move."

-"Don't worry, I'll be over there. How could you contact me?" I asked.

-"The guards went in to find you and no, your EMP didn't affect our communicators. Strange, right?" She said.

-"Yeah. Kinda lucky. Where are you, exactly?" I asked.

-"North Wing, C Ring, top floor." She indicated.

-"I won't… ugh. I won't even ask how you memorized that. I know your answer." I said, tiredly.

-"You alright, baby?" She asked.

-"I don't feel good. The EMP took a lot of my energy but I think I'm regenerating little by little." I said.

-"You're not gonna like who I saw." Quorra said. "The president and Edward Dillinger Jr." She mentioned.

-"So we were right about Dillinger all the time." I said.

-"Yeah. Can't talk anymore." She whispered and stayed silent.

-"Dammit. I love you, Q." I whispered.

I heard steps coming closer and I took my two lightswords out.

The guards tried to shoot me down but I hid right beside a desk. My lightsuit's circuitry went off, then I slowly stood up from the floor and stealthily killed them with the swords.

-"A bit choppy." I teased.

I kept on my way to the North Wing. I was at the East one.

I kept looking at this strange hooded man at brief moments as I made my way to Quorra.

-"Who are you?" I shouted.

-"I can't believe you did it." The man whispered with an old voice as it disappeared. "You did spread it."

-"…W-What?" I mumbled in confusion.

I blacked out again.

A while later I woke up at the D-Ring's first floor in the Pentagon.

-"Oww my…heeeaaad!" I complained.

I saw my hand covered in blood.

-"Great, my skin shield is failing now. Wait… this isn't my blood." I said, confused.

I looked up and saw a body with an iron bar going through its chest, making it hang from the roof. Then, I found another body inside an office, hanging from a desk.

-"What happened here?" I asked.

-"Go for her. She's the miracle, man. Everything I ever worked for." The voice told me.

-"What? Who?" I asked. "Quorra?"

I kept walking, making my way to the Pentagon's North wing of the C-Ring. I gradually began feeling better.

-"Bio-digital jazz." I heard the man again.

-"WHO ARE YOU?" I shouted in desperation.

I saw a small spark right on my wrist. Suddenly the circuitry running through my lightsuit's sleeve began to light up more than other parts of the suit.

-"What's going on?" I mumbled. "AGH!"

I blacked out again. Then I woke up.

-"Ugh. The suit's getting ticked off." I told myself.

I kept walking, sometimes sideways and almost out of balance. I felt weak for a while. Suddenly I began to feel normal again. I recovered faster than the other times I had blacked out.

Then I walked by and saw 5 bodies lying around.

-"Who's doing this?" I asked.

-"One day…" The voice whispered.

I walked until I finally reached a door leading to the C-Ring.

-"…C-Ring now. Finally. Better find a way up." I told myself.

I saw an elevator.

-"Maybe the EMP… Never mind. It's dead." I hesitated as I saw the elevator's buttons.

I pressed one of the buttons as I walked away and it turned on. Apparently my suit had transmitted its energy to the elevator's power supply.

-"Hah. You have to be kidding me. Free ride." I joked. "Guess I won't have to use the stairs."

I felt the elevator going up until it shook. The elevator was jammed now.

-"Nice! Let's see how do I get outta this box, eh?" I asked myself.

I kicked a small hatch on the ceiling until it opened.

-"Ugh, Climbing." I complained.

I climbed my way up the elevator's wires. Halfway, I felt like blacking out.

-"No. Not here. Not here." I said, trying not to black out.

…but in the end, I blacked out. I did not fall down, instead, when I woke up, I found myself lying on the top floor.

I found lots of guards' corpses lying on top of the elevator and hanging from the elevator door.

Suddenly I saw Quorra lying on the floor too.

-"Quorra." I gasped.

I reached out for her but she disappeared. It was an illusion.

-"No." I whispered.

I felt somebody lift me up. I noticed a holographic 'cloud' made up of glowing blue code dissipating.

-"Who are you?" I asked but got no answer.

I made my way to the next room and saw Quorra in the torture chamber she mentioned.

-"Quorra! I got you!" I shouted.

Suddenly two guards appeared with stun batons, but I quickly pulled out my lightswords and pushed their own batons back to them, making them get stunned.

-"I'm not stupid, Dillinger." I said.

Suddenly, Quorra got shocked by the wires surrounding her in the chamber.

-"Quorra! Quorra?" I shouted.

-"Me neither, kid." Dillinger answered.

-"So you were behind the power all this time, weren't you?" I asked him.

-"Not all the time, but I only did it for one thing: The ISO. How did you called her? Quorra? Oh wait, all pets have names." He teased.

-"The only animal I see here it's you, little geeky son of a bitch. Oh, by the way, I did mean that. Your father was a cyber whore, stealing software from others and calling it his own." I teased him back.

-"He never stole anything. He only took something he could've done already and saved himself some time." He said.

-"What a lazy old bitch you have as a father." I teased him again.

Dillinger Jr, filled with rage, morphed a yellow lightsuit and tackled me. He punched me twice on my face but I kicked him away.

-"Come on!" I teased him as I regained full vital energies.

I jumped over and kicked him on the face, making his nose bleed, then I took a gun out and shot him right on his head.

-"Ahh, I knew you were going to bring your little tricks. Joseph, you know that you have to protect yourself if you want to rule an entire nation, don't you?" He asked.

-"You copied it." I gasped.

-"Yeah, I know I know. I 'borrowed' your skin shield idea, but how does it feel when your own invention is used against you?" He shouted.

I punched the ground with my lightdisc, creating a chained explosion directed to Dillinger but he morphed a firewall that protected him against the attack.

-"Gotta thank, Windows, right?" He punned.

He jumped against me and kicked me on the stomach, taking my air off. Then he tried to choke me but I burned his hands with my disc. He kicked it away and kicked me on the stomach, he was about to do so again but I grabbed his foot.

-"NOBODY. EVER. KICKS ME WHILE I'M DOWN!" I said, filled with fury.

I pulled him down and punched him on the face, breaking his glasses off, ripping a small part of his facial skin-shield.

-"Got a scratch, D!" I taunted as I punched Dillinger.

He kicked me up to the ceiling. As I fell, he took his glasses off and wiped off the broken glass off his face, then when I landed he pressed his hand against my head. I began to remember Trisha again.

-"She wasn't triggered coincidentally Joseph. I KNOW WHO SHE IS!" Dillinger said.

-"You don't know anything about Trisha!" I shouted.

-"I know her." He whispered.

Suddenly, Dillinger morphed into Trisha.

-"Now you see?" Trisha spoke.

-"…You're not Trisha." I said.

-"But you still feel like if it was actually her." Dillinger teased.

I looked at him… I mean her. It did felt like if it was actually Trisha. Dillinger perfectly mimicked her voice, her expressions, everything about her.

-"I guess you love me more than you love that bunch of code!" Trisha shouted

She ran towards me and punched me right on my chest. I fell looking at her.

-"That bunch of code did love me!" I shouted.

-"Loved you? She has no feelings! She's just numbers and circuits!" Trisha teased.

-"She's half human. She's bio-digital." I told her.

-"Oh. Excuse me. Bio-digital. Half a holographic human-mimicking bitch." Trisha teased.

-"Look who's talking." I whispered.

-"What did you say?" Trisha asked, angered.

-"I said…LOOK. WHO. IS. CALLING HER. A BITCH." I teased her.

She ran towards me, furious of what I said. I dodged her every time she tried to tackle or punch me, but on her 5th attempt, she tackled me, falling on top of me.

-"Whoops, Feeling aroused?" Trisha winked. "I know you want me back."

-"Get off me!" I shouted.

She pressed my hands and legs to the ground. I couldn't move.

-"You miss me. You still think about me. How could I trigger that memory if supposedly it wasn't there? That's because you still remember our kisses. You remember me like the ONLY girl that made you feel love." Trisha whispered on my ear, laughing.

-"Trisha. Stop." I gasped.

Tears came out of my eyes as I saw her coming closer to my face. She was about to kiss me, and she was opening the scar inside my heart, the scar she made herself.

-"Trisha… I don't want you." I told her.

-"Why did you stalk me then? Why did the virus trigger me inside your memory?" Trisha asked. "Because you CAN'T forget me! YOU CAN'T! The only way you'll forget me is if I blow your brains off, or if we go back to what we were before. You and me, alone, just kissing freely."

-"No." I denied.

-"Really? That's what you want? To have me inside your head all the time, making you suffer, making myself your most wanted desire." She whispered.

Trisha got closer to my neck.

-"Trish. No. Get away from me." I sobbed.

She kissed me on my neck, going up. Tears fell down my cheeks. I cried as I remembered how she kissed me back then.

-"I know. Shh shh, don't cry baby." Trisha said, soothing me.

She began heading for my mouth.

-"No. Trixie." I gasped.

-"Don't move. It'll be easier." She said.

-"NOOOOOO!" I shouted.

I used all my strength to slip my arm away from her hand and punch her. Blood came out of her mouth as I sent her away from me with one single blow.

-"Nobody told you to never hit women?" Trisha asked as she stood up and wiped the blood out of her mouth.

-"Yeah, and I still haven't hit any!" I teased her with anger.

Trisha ran towards me and tried to pull a gun against me. I took one of my lightswords and threw it against her feet, cutting a small part of her left leg. She fell.

I stood up and walked towards her, holding my other lightsword tightly.

-"You're not gonna kill a girl, are you? You're not a gentleman, I guess." Trisha teased.

I stopped and began to morph into Quorra.

-"As you wish." Quorra said.

Quorra kicked Trisha's face and morphed back into Dillinger.

-"Stop it, Dil. We know you're not Trisha. You almost got me for a sec." Quorra/I told Dillinger as I morphed back to myself.

He fainted, succumbing to the pain inflicted by my kick to his face.

Meanwhile, the real Quorra was inside the torture chamber.

-"Ugh! My head." Quorra mumbled with anger as she woke up.

Suddenly I brought Dillinger, kicking him inside the room where Quorra was held.

-"Joseph?" Quorra said.

-"We're done." I said, looking at the guards in the room.

They ran towards me. I pulled my lightdisc and along with my sword, I fought the guards, slicing their necks.

-"Anyone else?" I shouted.

As I saw the room empty, I decided to free Quorra from the chamber. I saw her through the glass.

-"I got you, baby. You'll be fine." I told her.

I tried to break the glass from the chamber but I only cracked it a little. I kept trying suddenly I heard Quorra screaming.

Suddenly, I found a lightsword stuck on my chest. It was my own, the one I threw to Dillinger while he was morphed into Trisha. I began to feel a chill running all down my body.

-"Joseph!" Quorra shouted.

I fell, looking at my blood spilled all over the floor. I heard Quorra smashing the glass until it opened.

Quorra took my other lightsword and tried to kill Dillinger but he morphed back into Trisha again.

-"Sad about your boyfriend?" Trisha teased.

Quorra took a gun out of my pocket and fired at Trisha but nothing happened.

-"Do I really have to explain it to you, ALL OVER?" Trisha asked, sarcastically.

Quorra and Trisha fought, throwing each other to glass objects, computers, monitors, walls, and etcetera. Punching, kicking and pushing each other away.

-"You're gonna make me think you're Trisha, won't you?" Quorra asked.

-"You know I am her! You know that you want to kill me because of your jealousy." Trisha said in a grim tone. "Joseph kissed me back there, just like old times. He said you were just a bunch of code, and that I was the big prize, fully made of flesh that he can kiss every day…and night."

-"He didn't say that. I know him better!" Quorra said as she tried to punch Trisha.

…but Trisha punched Quorra on the face and kicked her down.

-"You should've seen him! Oh, Trisha I missed you! I missed your kisses! Why don't we just consume the ISO, go home and make a family?" Trisha teased Quorra.

Quorra was lying on the floor, weak after the shocks she received while in the torture chamber as well as by the things Trisha told her.

-"He never said that." Quorra gasped.

She was crawling towards my body, and then Trisha walked towards her, about to slice her arm off with a lightsword.

-"I love you, Joseph." Quorra whispered.

Trisha swinged her lightsword towards Quorra's arm but she stopped her.

-"Not my arm, again." Quorra said.

She pulled Trisha down, making her drop her lightsword.

-"After what you did to him! After what he told me about you! You expect me to believe your lies?" Quorra shouted in rage.

She punched Trisha until she morphed back into Dillinger… but she kept looking at him as Trisha.

-"I guess it wasn't a coincidence that the virus triggered a memory on Joseph. It was a targeted memory, not a randomly picked one." Quorra told Trisha.

Quorra kicked and punched Trisha until she was almost unconscious. Having quenched her anger, she regained consciousness and realized it was Dillinger Jr. who she was fighting against.

-"Ugh. You still want to…ugh…. Fight me?" Dillinger complained.

Quorra pulled his head and ripped his skin shield off his face from the sections that previously got sliced with the impact of his broken glasses. His head was now exposed. She grabbed a pistol and aimed it directly into Dillinger's eyes.

-"No need to fool me with my feelings, Dill." Quorra frowned.

She fired at Dillinger, emptying the whole cartridge on his head. Blood spilled on the floor and his yellow circuitry was now turned off.

-"You're done." Quorra gasped as she threw the empty gun on Dillinger's corpse.

She walked towards me and placed her hand on my chest right where the wound was. She pulled the lightsword out, waking me up. I shouted as I felt a burning pain.

-"It's alright. I got you. Just hold still." Quorra whispered.

She began touching the inside of my wound with her index finger. I saw blue lights flickering inside. Quorra slid her finger around the wound and saw how it regenerated. I felt a small pressure on my chest but then it was gone.

-"I told you. We're more than just humans now." Quorra smiled.

I stood up.

-"Follow me." I ordered.

I walked to a conference room with Quorra right behind me. There he was: President Thomas Valentine, the root of a corruption network.

-"The ISO. So you guys came here to arrest me, don't you?" He asked.

-"Yeah. Death penalty for being a liar." I said.

Without hesitating, I shot Thomas Valentine on the head, killing him.

-"I guess we're free now." Quorra said.

-"No. We still have to convince all the other powers related to the government." I said.

-"More invasions?" She asked.

-"We're just talking to them, if they don't agree you'll see what happens next." I answered.

Suddenly the room began to crumble.

-"They already took down the Pentagon's defense line?" I asked.

-"How about we fry down the Pentagon?" Quorra suggested.

-"How?" I asked.

-"Just like you did your EMP but we have to be powered by the digitizing laser hitting the center of the Pentagon. It's still firing. If we use its power along with ours, we'll be able to boost not an EMP but an actual bomb that is able to destroy the Pentagon and the viruses below it. The whole installation will be just ruins." Quorra explained.

-"A bomb? We're a living bomb?" I asked.

-"Exactly." Quorra affirmed.

-"We're gonna die, right?" I asked.

-"Did you die while making the EMP?" Quorra asked back.

-"No." I answered.

-"Great. That means we're gonna be telling this story to our children." Quorra joked.

I kissed Quorra.

-"I really missed you." I told her.

-"I did too, but I knew you were gonna be here for me. I always knew you'd never leave me." Quorra said.

-"Thank you for having faith in me." I told her.

-"Come on, we better move." Quorra ordered.

Quorra and I kept going to the center of the Pentagon. We expected more resistance but all the guards were directing their attention to the external attacks. A few of them did attack us but we sliced them down with our discs while the other guards headed for the Pentagon's exit.

Finally, we saw blue light rays coming out of a door. It was the door leading to the center of the Pentagon, the yard where the digitizing laser impacted. The grass and walls were all covered by blue glowing shards of cracked digitized floor and the laser striking the floor and its power causing a strong wind.

-"Quorra? Now what?" I asked.

-"What did you do to cause an EMP?" She asked.

-"I uh…clenched my fist." I remembered.

-"And…?" She asked. "Anything you felt? Anything you thought about?"

-"Just… Urgency, tension, nerves, wishing to know if you were okay." I said.

-"Try to put all of your feelings together, both positive and negative." Quorra adviced.

I saw how the lightchoppers and normal helicopters bombed down each other. I heard the full scale war raging on the Pentagon. I just thought "We're gonna die down here, and this planet will stay in chaos."

-"Quorra…" I gasped.

I remembered everything we had together as well as moments from my past, both good and bad, re-living them all in a few seconds. I began to feel a knot in my heart.

Suddenly, I saw him. It was the same guy who followed me inside the Pentagon as I blacked out inside: Kevin Flynn. I stared at him like if I had seen a ghost.

-"Just focus." He whispered.

-"Quorra… it's….it's…" I mumbled.

-"I know… I can see him too." Quorra gasped.

-"Both of you must close your eyes and just focus your suit's energy to your hands." Kevin explained.

Two circles of light appeared around our feet.

-"When the bomb goes off, shield up." Kevin advised.

-"Got it." I said. "Okay… three…two…"

I kept remembering all my life until my feelings combined.

Then our suits lit up completely and a giant explosion happened, crumbling the Pentagon into pieces as well as burning the viruses down. Vehicles were flying away, being half-derezzed or destroyed by the shockwave. Programs were intact but most of the government soldiers were blown away and the viruses derezzed, even the ones underground.

My shield protected us against the impact of the bomb as well as the Pentagon's walls falling on us.

-"Quorra! Joseph! What happened down there?" Sam asked. "Joseph? Quorra?"

I blacked out.

-"Evelyn! Do you have a read on them?" Sam asked desperately.

-"They're below the ruins! Get 'em out of there." Evelyn said, having tracked our location.

Two programs with lightchoppers went to pick us up, opening a path for ground programs by killing the remaining government hostiles with their miniguns, yet some of them were still alive and fighting.

I saw how 2 programs got us out of the wreckage. I saw Quorra being carried by a female program while I was being carried by a male one.

-"We got 'em! Get them inside the chopper!" A program ordered.

I gasped.

-"Quorra… Quorra…" I mumbled.

We got into the same lightchopper and flew towards Sam. As we flew, I thought Quorra didn't made it, until she moved her index finger as I touched her hand, then she woke up.

-"Ahh, thank God." I said with relief.

-"Are we done, now?" Quorra asked.

-"Look by yourself." I smiled.

Quorra looked outside and saw the Pentagon completely wrecked, burned and destroyed.

-"Finally." Quorra hugged me.

She began to cry tears of joy as she held my hand tight.

We landed and saw the remaining hostile government soldiers surrendering as they were clearly outnumbered.

-"They're surrendering!" A program shouted.

Suddenly Sam stepped forward to the surrendering soldiers and spoke to them.

-"We will not imprison or kill you if you let us help you and your people. We're not evildoers and we're not here for the power but for the world's peace. If you join us, you will have our protection but if you fight against us, you will be considered corrupt and will be instantly executed. We HAVE to take over your government to assure stability. No, we will not take your jobs, you will keep them but you will be monitored by programs to assure that you're not part of a scam or fraud for the nation." Sam explained.

-"Why? We helped them for a long time and now you're just letting us go?" A guard asked.

-"You were just following orders. No need to spill innocent blood, unless you want me to do so." Sam said.

-"No. It's okay. Thank you, sir." The guard said.

-"No need to thank me, just go and make a better nation. If you spot any irregular activity just report it." Sam ordered.

-"Quorra? Joseph?" Evelyn asked.

-"Where are they?" Tron asked.

Quorra and I had taken a lightchopper back home.

-"Guys, sorry if we didn't told you but we're heading back home. We're tired and, we really want to sleep." Quorra said via her communicator.

-"It's alright, Q. Thanks for everything." Sam said.

-"Sam… by the way, we have to talk." Quorra said.

-"What is it?" Sam asked.

-"Your dad. He may be alive. We saw him inside while we were about to blow the Pentagon. He seemed to be… made up of code but still alive." Quorra explained.

-"I'll be heading to the lab! I think I know what happened to him! Thank you, Quorra!" Sam said with joy.

-"You're welcome, Sam." Quorra greeted.

At home, finally.

-"I have so many questions, Quorra. What happened to us?" I asked.

-"We got a power upgrade, our suits simply 'matured'." She explained.

-"Oh. I guess that's normal but how can you explain the fact that Dillinger could adapt the shape of Trisha?" I asked.

-"He simply thought about your connection with her. He assumed that you were once really linked up and used that against you. I just think he took a deep look at your life before he triggered that memory in your mind." Quorra explained.

-"Oh. I think I don't have anymore questions, therefore… we should…" I whispered as I got closer to Quorra.

-"I don't think we're gonna need these lightsuits for a while." Quorra smirked as she derezzed her lightsuit.

I derezzed mine too.

-"Finally… fresh air." I joked.

I kissed her and took her to bed, passionately kissing each other.

After that night, I saw Quorra looking at the city from the rooftop wearing casual clothes. I wore some jeans and a black shirt and went up with her.

-"You alright?" I asked.

-"Yeah, I'm just wondering, when is this war gonna be over?" Quorra asked.

-"Maybe we took the whole U.S. Government but that doesn't mean we took the whole world. This war is far from over."

-"So, where's our next stop?" She asked.

I took a map out of my pocket with the United States marked with a cross, referring to it as 'cleaned'.

-"Your pick." I told her.


	11. Episode 11: From The Grave

We thought we had taken over the corrupt government of the United States by killing President Thomas Valentine, but we just shook the hive.

10 hours after confirming U.S. Cleanup.

The loyalist soldiers walked away from the destroyed Pentagon building.

"We're good. Going home. Can't believe we freed a whole country, I was somehow thinking we had joined the wrong side!" a soldier cheered, with relief.

-"Don't worry, Collins. The information came from a team inside the U.S. Marines. They received the recordings from one of these digital guys." Sgt. Wells, a marine, explained to his soldier.

Suddenly, explosions were heard around.

-"You hear that?" Pvt. Shaw said.

-"Explosions. Control, do you have a read on some explosions, over?" Sgt. Wells asked and received nothing but static. "Comms are dead. Keep your eyes open."

Suddenly, mines began to explode around the team, killing several soldiers. Only Wells was left alive, lying on the floor. He saw gas masked soldiers coming closer. He played dead, hoping that he wouldn't get shot. He heard their boots pounding the floor as they walked, until the sound just faded away slowly towards the destroyed Pentagon.

Meanwhile…

Quorra and I were in our apartment, ready to travel out of the city. The digitizing power that was taking over the U.S. was almost disappearing completely a week after it was fired. Digital soil was becoming natural again.

-"So when is the plane taking off to South America?" Quorra asked.

-"3 hours." I said.

-"Awesome. Cleaning this world and traveling to exotic places? I think this isn't as bad as I thought." Quorra joked.

Suddenly, I received a text message from Sam saying "Run. They wear black suits.".

-"Weird. Sam sent me something." I said, confused.

-"They…wear black suits." Quorra read aloud. "We better get as far away from here as possible."

-"What?" I asked.

-"Just follow me and rez up your lightsuit!" Quorra ordered as she rezzed up hers.

We climbed down our apartment and rezzed up our lightcycles. We were in Los Angeles. The skies were cloudy, the sun was blocked but not in a normal way. It seemed like if it was completely blocked by clouds, blocking the sunlight, making the day almost look like night.

-"And it had to be rainy! Lucky me!" I said sarcastically.

-"This isn't a coincidence, Joseph." Quorra cleared. "It's the IRI."

-"IRI?" I asked.

-"I'll explain when we get to the lab!" Quorra said.

A building fell down, blocking our way to the lab. We had to take another way.

-"You gotta be kidding me!" I shouted.

-"I can't believe they already reached us! Let's go! Move!" Quorra ordered.

Suddenly, the ground began to shake.

-"What… Earthquake?" I asked Quorra.

-"Keep going!" Quorra ordered.

Suddenly she derezzed her lightcycle and jumped onto mine.

-"Easy… easy. Keep going." Quorra whispered, trying to relax me.

I accelerated and jumped over a cracked street. Many black SUVs were waiting, but we jumped over them.

-"Don't look back! Don't turn!" Quorra said, startled by the strange SUVs.

Suddenly, mortar rounds began to land over the buildings randomly.

-"Seriously, what is this? A massive terrorist attack?" I complained.

-"Something like that, actually." Quorra answered.

Quorra and I arrived to the laboratory below ENCOM and put it into lockdown.

In the lab…

-"Okay… we're good, now." Quorra said with relief.

-"The Earthquake and the rain… it wasn't coincidence, right?" I asked.

-"Exactly. It might be hard to believe but they have a device that can cause all these things. Over the years they've been improving it to do even more types of natural disasters." Quorra explained.

-"And… what is it, exactly?" I asked.

-"The IRI, or Ionospheric Research Instrument, it was formerly used to alter a small area of the ionosphere but it is now altered to do much more than that, could also be used by them to destroy important places of the Earth. It's used for the HAARP Program. Ever heard of it?" Quorra asked.

-"Yeah. I've read of it." I said. "They want to enhance communications."

-"And surveillance systems. If they do they will control everybody." Quorra said.

-"Secret Service right?" I asked.

-"No, it's something bigger than the secret service. They call themselves The Ghost, because they're one whole, they work together, but yet nobody sees them. I call them Ghost Company to refer to them as plural." Quorra explained.

-"Weird. What are they?" I asked.

-"A secret society that works behind the government, controlling every action this country takes. When we killed the president, we didn't kill the queen bee, we just shook the hive." Quorra said. "We had to escape because I can bet ten-thousand dollars that they're right after us and that they would've destroyed our house."

-"Yeah. What now? How do we identify them?" I asked.

-"That's the problem. You can't. Not until they start to shoot at you. They could be anywhere, maybe walking outside as we speak. You never know. They can disguise as anything, from a businessman to a bum. You name it." Quorra explained.

-"That is scary." I mumbled.

-"We have no other choices. It's either fighting for freedom or surrendering the world to them." She said, with a grim tone.

-"How are we gonna eliminate them?" I asked.

-"Destroying their headquarters and taking them to light." Quorra said. "Unfortunately, that won't be easy as to record it in a tape or CD and take it to the authorities. They can easily censor the tape, or who knows, they can even control a judge to make him biased against us. We have to get their files, their whole database, and simply convince everyone, and of course, killing them."

-"We can't negotiate with them, right?" I asked.

-"Yeah! You can negotiate about the type of bullet you want them to shoot at you." Quorra joked.

-"I guess that's a no." I said.

-"Yeah, Uhh, Joseph? Would you kindly step into this suit scanner?" Quorra asked.

She pressed a button and a small room opened.

-"Get in. Don't worry, you'll be fine. This doesn't hurt." Quorra said.

I got in and Quorra sealed the door.

-"Step on the red square at the center of the room. It will only scan the suit." Quorra explained.

2 Holographic rings around me and a holo-screen displaying the suit's data appeared.

-"…You can't be serious." Quorra gasped.

-"Anything wrong?" I asked.

-"Our suits. They merged into us. I remember they were only a bunch of chemical-filled nanofibers and nanochips." Quorra said with a smile. "Now they're fully merged into our bodies, but the interesting part is… that they're changing… by themselves."

-"Adaptation?" I asked.

-"No. Evolution." She smiled.

Suddenly, Quorra grabbed her head.

-"You alright?" I asked.

-"Ugh! Yeah… yeah! Don't worry." She said.

-"Quorra?" I called her, concerned.

Then she walked closer to the chamber's window and began punching it, making a small crack. Luckily, it was a very thick window.

-"Quorra! Quorra!" I shouted. "Calm down! What's wrong?"

She stopped hitting the window and lowered her head.

-"Easy. Easy." I whispered. "Does something hurt?"

Then she raised her face up, looking directly at my eyes but she didn't say a word.

-"Quorra?" I whispered.

She walked, staggering towards the door controls and opened the door.

-"Get out of the chamber… NOW!" She ordered desperately.

I went out of the chamber.

-"What's wrong?" I asked.

-"It's alright, just a little strange suit adjustment." Quorra said.

I stared at her, concerned that she was lying about it.

-"Are you sure?" I asked her.

-"Yeah! Tends to happen. Headaches, sometimes it makes you delusional." She said.

-"Never happened to me." I replied.

-"Your suit is different." She said.

-"Yeah." I said, doubting of Quorra's responses.

-"Okay, now back to our suits. They're evolving and creating new defense mechanisms as we fight." Quorra explained.

Quorra suddenly went invisible.

-"Looks like we got some active camo. Nice." I said.

-"You see, the suit learns and adapts to its environment." Quorra explained.

I looked at my hands. The blue-glowing circuitry turned white.

-"Look." Quorra gasped.

She watched the TV. The newscaster was reporting a series of strikes that supposedly came from Arab terrorists. Of course, we knew the truth.

-"We've received reports of numerous random attacks in New York, California, Arizona, Virginia, and Washington D.C. Mortar rounds as well as napalm strikes have been destroying several cities in each of the mentioned states and spreading around them into other areas of the United States. Several sources have confirmed that these attacks are in fact from Arab origin." The news caster said.

-"The G.C. is attacking EVERYTHING and blaming the Arabs, but why are they destroying their own land?" Quorra asked.

Suddenly, we heard an explosion right above us.

-"I think ENCOM is coming down." I said.

-"Sam, this is Quorra… PLEASE RESPOND!" She requested desperately.

-"Hey, Q. This is Sam. Don't worry. That explosion you heard was my idea. I sent Tron to download all the data from ENCOM's servers into a single chip and to destroy the ENCOM building. He's delivering the chip back to me." Sam explained.

-"Are you okay out there?" She asked.

-"Yeah. I almost got killed, though. Listen, these guys are trying to spread horror throughout the U.S. and the world. Apparently we killed one of their men." Sam said.

-"We know." Quorra said.

-"Guys, if you come outside now… you'll see total anarchy. There's chaos and riots on the streets. The programs had to be stored back to their base right at your lab." Sam explained.

-"They're here? We thought they were with you!" Quorra asked.

-"Yes. They have rectifying devices. If they get their hands on our programs, they can turn our plans against us." Sam explained. "That's why I kept them out of this. Sorry guys."

-"It's alright. We'll figure this out." I said.

-"When you get out of the lab, bring your swords. You're gonna need them to move around." Sam warned.

-"I'll take the advice. Out." I ended the chatter.

-"What now?" Quorra asked.

-"We go out and fight. Be careful and stick with me." I told her.

-"Okay." She nodded.

We went out to the streets and saw the chaos going on, geople hurting and killing each other, stealing, gangsters running around, murdering and looting.

-"No…way." Quorra gasped.

-"Human nature…exposed." I gasped.

We were both amazed, looking at what my race was doing. Quorra as a half-human, also felt deception.

-"Come on, let's go, Q." I told her.

Suddenly, a man with a machete tried to kill Quorra, but she stabbed him with her sword, and stopped his machete with her other hand. She stared at the man's dying eyes and pulled her sword out of him.

-"Let's go! Let's go!" I ordered.

-"Dad!" A kid screamed.

Quorra's face changed into a painful one, scared of her own actions. Her hands shook and her lightsword fell to the ground.

-"I …killed his father." Quorra sobbed.

-"I'm sorry, Q. You didn't know. You just defended yourself." I told her.

Suddenly, gangsters were closing up into the little boy.

-"NOOOO!" Quorra screamed.

She picked up her lightsword and sliced the gangsters with ever single milligram of her anger. Spilling blood around, swinging her sword with a fury I have never seen before in her. Suddenly, there was a silence.

-"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your father!" Quorra cried as she hugged the little kid.

I pulled Quorra away as fast as I could to avoid the traumatic event to grow.

I rezzed up my lightcycle and we traveled to a hotel on the outskirts of the city.

We arrived. I gently left Quorra on the top of a bed.

-"Easy… easy. It wasn't your fault, okay? The man tried to attack you." I said trying to calm Quorra down.

She was shivering, remembering what she did with regret.

-"I can't… I killed him. I…I'm a monster." She mumbled.

-"You're not a monster, you just defended yourself." I told her.

-"He'll be alright, okay? The man is gonna be fine. When this is all over, you'll be able to see him with his son taking his hand, alright?" I told her.

She burst out in tears.

-"He's fine, now. If he didn't have medical care, he's now in Heaven. Peace at last. He's not in this hell-hole, suffering. He's up there… smiling." I told Quorra, hugging her.

-"…I guess." She sobbed.

-"He's okay." I said.

-"Thank you, Joseph." Quorra told me, cleaning her tears away. Yet the scary memory remained.

-"It's alright. Sometimes we do things that we just can't handle…but we gotta look at the bright side of those things. The guy was suffering, and we sent him to peace." I told her.

-"Yeah. I hope he forgives me." Quorra said.

-"He already did. With your intentions, he already forgave you." I said.

I hugged Quorra tight.

-"Alright… now, we have to know where to strike first." I said.

-"I say that we capture one of them." Quorra suggested.

-"How?" I asked.

-"Most of them are in groups but there are other Ghost Soldiers that work alone." Quorra suggested. "The problem is identifying them, but they surely know who we are."

-"There are riots outside, right?" I asked.

-"Yes. Why?" Quorra asked back.

-"If we need, we can use them as cover. In case we have to lose them." I suggested.

-"Good." Quorra whispered.

I gently caressed her face and lifted her face up.

-"Hey, that guy shouldn't have attacked you, okay? You just defended yourself." I told her, softly.

-"I could've just dropped his weapon." Quorra regretted.

-"No. The blade was coming right at you. I would've killed him even if you had dropped his blade. Either way, he was gonna be killed." I told her. "When he swinged his machete, I pulled my lightdisc out, ready to slice his head off, but I saw that…that you've handled it."

-"Are you trying to make me feel better?" Quorra said.

-"Partially, but it's the truth. It wasn't your fault. He was at the wrong place, wrong time, and he even did a wrong action. He shouldn't have tried to kill you. Alright, he was just a clueless good man, but it was not your intention, not your fault. You just defended yourself. Quorra… you're NOT a bad person, alright? You would not be here if you were evil. You would've killed me if you were evil." I told her.

-"Okay." She sighed. "Thank you, Joseph."

She hugged me.

-"You do know how to make me feel better." She smiled.

-"I try my best with you." I said as I kissed her.

-"Thank you." She whispered.

Suddenly, somebody knocked our door.

-"Hello? Room service! This is an emergency!" The guy said with a nervous tone.

-"What is it?" I asked without opening the door.

-"The hotel is evacuating everyone due to the riots." He explained.

-"We're on our way." I said.

-"Alright, Q." I said. "Let's get out of here."

We walked out and suddenly went right into an electrocuting trap. We fell unconscious.

Later, we woke up inside a truck, with our hands and feet tied together.

-"Quorra." I whispered. "Quorra?"

-"Shhh, I have an idea." Quorra whispered.

Quorra rolled towards me and cloaked both of us with an active camo.

-"Stay quiet." She advised.

The guards opened the car's back door.

-"They're gone!" He shouted.

-"No. They're not gone." Another one suggested. "Give me your gun, now."

The soldier gave his pistol to who apparently was a general, and he shot us, uncloaking and eventually killing us.

-"They're dead now! See how easy was that? You could've let them escape!" The general shouted. "Now get them inside before their bodies get cold!"

They carried our bodies inside and placed us in cryo-tubes

-"They're…interesting." A scientist said. "Their suits have power in them. Are you sure they're deactivated?"

-"Completely." The general confirmed.

Suddenly, Quorra opened her eyes violently, staring at the doctor.

-"SHE'S ALIVE!" The doctor shouted. "We…we killed her back there!"

She kept staring at the doctor.

-"You haven't met my other side." She whispered.

She broke the cryo-tube and walked out. The soldiers kept shooting at but bullets did nothing to her. I woke up. I realized that I was dead for a few seconds. There was something really weird in Quorra, the way she walked towards the doctors and guards, it didn't seem like her.

She stabbed the doctor and looked him right on the eyes as he died.

-"Quorra! Quorra!" I shouted as I repeatedly hit the cryo-tube's glass.

She turned to look at me… and I saw her eyes. They were not the normal blue eyes I always saw. They were yellow, and the way she looked at me gave me a massive chill down my spine. She seemed hostile… deadly to me. She touched the cryo-tube gently and overloaded the cooling system. I felt as the cold air was slowly freezing my body, trapped inside the cryo-tube.

I saw how Quorra took her light disc and slaughtered the scientists and soldiers. Blood splattered on the walls. She headed into a hall and kept slaughtering people. I tried to bash it open but the cold air froze my muscles. I was getting weaker until I fainted.

Later I woke up. The lights were flickering and the lab was torn into pieces. Suddenly I felt my body heat come back and cracked the cryo-tube's glass open.

-"Quorra? Quorra! Respond! Can you hear me, Over?" I called her.

I felt the same shiver on my back from when I saw Quorra's yellow eyes. I went dizzy for a while and lights went off.

I looked up and saw 2 bright, yellow eyes, staring at me, then a flash appeared and the eyes were gone. I saw somebody within the flash. It was a girl, similar to Quorra but, naked, worn out, with blood all over her. Her skin seemed burned.

-"Quorra?" I shouted.

Suddenly, 2 G.C. Soldiers fired at me. I took a dead soldier's rifle and shot back. My suit's shields were down for a moment, and I could only use weapons. I blind fired and wounded one of them, I went out of cover and shot the other one, and finished off the wounded one.

I kept running through the halls, expecting to find Quorra. I shot at Ghost Company's incoming soldiers. Suddenly, another group of soldiers appeared and before I was about to shoot them, I saw Quorra stabbing two lightswords into the back of their heads. I noticed that I didn't have mine.

I found the power room at the end of the hall and Quorra was resting on a wall near the door of the room. She entered and shut the door closed. I heard screams of pain and death inside the room.

-"We have a breach on the power room!" A G.C. soldier shouted.

Quorra seemed to have trouble so I stayed near the room to cover her. I saw that my disc was powered up. I threw my disc right at the incoming soldiers, slicing them down. I fired my rifle while my disc went back to me.

Suddenly, the power room exploded, destroying its walls entirely and leaving the facility without any electric power. I didn't see Quorra anywhere, not even lying on the floor, but then I went out to the facility's main yard and saw her staring at me from the main door, somehow nobody appeared to pay attention to her, I blinked and she was actually cloaked with her suit's recently developed optical camouflage. I could see her yellow eyes looking at me as I made a run to the main gate. The soldiers missed every shot that they fired at me and made it outside and past the soldiers. Quorra kept running ahead of me into a forest, then she stop behind a tree.

-"Quorra! Ahh… finally. Why were you running from me? Why did you try to freeze me to death?" I asked. "Something I did to you?"

Suddenly, Quorra got closer to me and grabbed my neck tight, choking me until I fainted.

Suddenly, I began to have a strange dream. It seemed like a girl, similar to Quorra, crawling out of the Sea of Simulation, burned, and gasping.

Then I woke up to Quorra stabbing a needle on my chest. We were in our lab.

-"AAAAGHHH! QUORRA WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?" I screamed.

I felt as my body went still. Quorra increased the amount of anesthetics induced into my body, yet, I could still move my head as normal. She was taking a scalpel and when she was about to open my chest, she stood still, not moving. She began to shiver, holding the scalpel tight and then stabbing it on her torso. Suddenly, she violently convulsed for 2 seconds and fell to the floor.

-"NO! Quorra!" I shouted.

I fell off the surgery bed. I couldn't move.

-"Quorra!…QUORRA!" I shouted desperately.

Suddenly I saw somebody behind me. She seemed like Quorra…but it wasn't her. Her eyes were yellow, and her skin was grey. I felt like if a serpent was staring at me. She covered my mouth for a while until I blacked out. Later I woke up. Quorra was walking towards me.

-"Joseph? Joseph?" She shouted, scared. "What happened to you? Wake up. Come on… wake up."

I opened my eyes and saw her normal, beautiful blue eyes again.

-"Joseph, are you feeling okay?" She asked.

-"Yeah. I can move already." I said.

-"Thank God. I thought you were dead!" She said with relief.

-"We better find her." I said.

-"Find who?" Quorra asked.

-"The girl that almost killed me. She made me faint for a reason! Maybe she took something!" I suggested.

-"She's in here. She couldn't have gone far. I know her." Quorra said.

-"You know her?" I asked.

-"Joseph, do you remember when I had that bad headache while making your suit scan?" She asked.

-"Yeah, you had me worried." I said.

-"I know what she did to you. She was gonna escape without you when we were taken by the Ghost Company. When we briefly died, she took over my body and did everything. You know I will never harm you myself." Quorra explained.

-"What is 'she'?" I asked.

-"Her name is Zira." Quorra said. "I discovered something from her myself when I knew where she came from, when I saw her arm, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I was breathless. She barely survived."

-"What did you discovered from her?" I asked.

-"I'm not the last ISO." She answered.


	12. Episode 12: Ghost Conspiracy

Los Angeles was wrecked. Riots took over the streets. Police took action to the point that they had to kill civilians. People were against the government as it was exposed to be corrupt. Explosions and shots could be heard from the lab as well as several screams of the people. It was all chaos.

But my concern wasn't outside… it was inside the lab. Closer to me… and it could kill me, even in my sleep.

Quorra and I were talking about it.

-"I'm not the last ISO." She said.

-"How?" I asked.

-"Her name is Zira. She somehow managed to come out of the Grid. I don't understand how she survived the Purge!" Quorra explained.

-"Maybe she got lucky or something. The Grid is a big place." I said.

Suddenly a light-bulb exploded.

-"Whoa!" I shouted.

-"Easy now, what do you want, Zira?" Quorra asked her.

Suddenly I saw her in front of me. Zira. Staring at me with her glowing yellow eyes.

-"Quorra, she's… she's…i-i-in front of…me." I stuttered with fear.

-"Where? I don't see her!" Quorra asked.

-"What? Right in front of me! Right in front of me!" I shouted desperately.

-"Calm down! Don't move." She ordered.

-"She looks exactly like you…" I whispered.

-"What did you say?" Quorra asked.

I saw Zira walking towards me. She looked almost like Quorra but her hair was fuzzy, her eyes were yellow, her lips were black and her skin was grey. Her circuitry was dark purple.

-"Can you talk?" I asked Zira.

She did not answer.

Suddenly, she approached me and grabbed my face. She came closer until our eyes were really close. I began to feel weak and then I blacked out.

-"Joseph! Joseph! Wake up!" Quorra shouted. I heard her voice as an echo.

Suddenly, I found myself underwater. I was swimming to the surface. I felt a burning sensation all over my body, my eyes hurt but I had to go to the surface.

Then I finally rose up and climbed up some rocks. I realized I was in the Grid. I couldn't speak. I laid on the ground and saw some burning marks all over my skin. I couldn't walk. Suddenly, two of CLU's guards approached me and prepared his lightsword to kill me.

Suddenly I found myself standing up. I looked at my hands… I was inside the Guard's body. I killed the other guard and somehow deactivated the Guard himself, leaving its body. I could possess programs. Then I realized I wasn't in my body since I saw an ISO symbol on my shoulder. I saw Zira's face reflected on the derezzed guard's helmet. CLU's ship was still in the Grid. I wasn't in my body, I was reliving a memory from Zira. My skin's burn spots were from the infection that the guards poured into the sea and the stings were from the gridbugs that almost derezzed Zira.

Then, I repossessed the Guard's body and walked back into the Grid.

Finally, I woke up to Quorra giving me CPR.

-"Joseph? How are you feeling?" Quorra asked, concerned.

-"Ugh, I feel like if I jogged for 30 kilometers." I complained.

-"Easy now. Don't move." Quorra ordered.

-"Hey… I know how she came in." I told Quorra.

-"How?" She asked.

-"I relived one of her memories. I don't think she's a bad person. She just wants to… survive." I explained.

-"By killing." Quorra said.

-"Hey, she went out of the Sea of Simulation right after the Guards poisoned the water. She was all burned, stinged by gridbugs, and ... she almost died." I explained. "She took over a guard's body and…" I explained but Quorra interrupted me.

-"Hey! Shhh… do you hear that?" Quorra said.

Suddenly we heard cries and sobbing from inside the suit scanning room.

We saw a dark purple glow in the room's corner and got inside. We saw her, lying on the floor looking at her burns.

-"Hey… Zira?" I gently whispered.

Then we saw the glow disappear, leaving a small cloud of digital ashes.

-"She's gone." I said.

-"I don't think she's gone." Quorra suspected.

Suddenly, Quorra turned around and saw Zira on the scanning room's control panel. She locked us inside the room.

-"Let us out of here! Zira! Why the hell do you want us dead?" I asked desperately.

I began to punch the window but it was useless.

-"Is there a hatch or a ventilation shaft around here?" I asked Quorra.

-"Yes but they're too small for us. It's to avoid any intruders." Quorra explained.

-"So we're not gonna run out of air?" I asked.

-"Only if she…" Quorra stopped…

Suddenly the ventilation systems were sealed.

-"THAT is what I was afraid of." Quorra said. "She sealed the vents, meaning, if we stay here, we're gonna run out of oxygen."

I took my lightdisc.

-"Okay! Hold." I said.

I smashed the glass with my disc but it only cracked the window's surface.

-"Get us out of here!" I said.

Suddenly, I threatened Zira with killing Quorra. I placed my disc on Quorra's throat.

-"JOSEPH! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" She shouted, panicked.

-"If you don't get us out, I'll slice her throat open!" I threatened Zira.

-"Joseph! Listen, I know you're tense… I know you don't want to die, but listen! There might be another way out of here. You don't have to kill me to destroy Zira." Quorra said.

-"If I have to kill you to get out of here, I will. Listen, Zira… I know you want her body. If you let me out, she's all yours." I said.

Zira looked at us.

-"Come and get her body. I have her here. She moves… she dies." I said, inviting Zira to consume Quorra's body.

Zira walked in the room towards Quorra.

-"Why are you doing this?" "I hope you're proud." Quorra said with disappointment.

-"I am..." I told her. "…Because it will save your life."

I sprinted towards Zira.

-"Joseph! NO!" Quorra shouted.

Zira had entered my body. I convulsed on the floor trying to contain her.

-"Get out of here and lock the room!" I told Quorra. "GO!"

She locked me inside the scanning room with Zira. I held her inside my body, trying to absorb her.

-"Joseph! Get into the square!" Quorra ordered. "Oh my God…"

Quorra looked at me. My left eye was yellow and the skin around it was grey.

I struggled to get into the square in the center of the room, which was used for suit scanning purposes. In a more detailed way, it's used to make the scanning system target and lock on the suit and scan it while the user can move around freely.

-"I'm trying! She keeps pulling…my legs back!" I said, struggling to get to the square.

I held my legs, standing on the square for a few seconds.

-"Easy, hold it there!" Quorra said as she pressed the scanner button.

The scanner locked me on, but suddenly a vapor began to emerge from the walls. The cooling system of the room was failing and the glass began to mist over, blocking Quorra's only line of sight to me.

I felt how Zira took over me. I felt weak and suddenly blacked out.

Quorra tried to open the door but it was manually locked.

-"Joseph! Hang on!" She shouted.

She tried to kick the door open but it was too solid.

Suddenly, I shrieked in pain.

-"AAAAAAAAGH!"

-"Joseph! Joseph! Just… let me know that you're there." Quorra said, extremely worried.

After a moment… I emerged from the vapor. I was alive. I seemed normal now.

-"Joseph…" She whispered.

-"She's gone." I smiled.

-"Really? How?" Quorra asked.

-"She's gone, Quorra…" I stared at her, smiling and nervously laughing.

Quorra's smile of relief began to fade into a face of confusion and fear.

-"She's not…" Quorra gasped.

I felt fear running all over my body and a piercing, burning chill running down my spine.

-"What… what are you doing to him?" Quorra asked to somebody behind me.

It was Zira, who placed her hand over my back and somehow sealed my lungs.

-"Q… I… I can't breathe!" I shouted, panicking.

I violently banged the glass with my bare hands.

-"NO! LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Quorra screamed.

I couldn't talk anymore and my sight was completely blurred, until I blacked out.

-"JOSEPH!…NO!" Quorra cried. She sat in front of the door, hopelessly.

Suddenly, Quorra burst into a storage room and took a canister that was inside a box at the end of the room. It seemed like it had water.

Quorra shot the scanning room's door open with a pistol and faced Zira.

-"You have me here now." Quorra said. "Anything else?"

Zira just stared at her.

-"Can't you talk? I KNOW YOU CAN TALK! I'VE HEARD YOU!" She shouted irately.

Quorra carefully poured the liquid on her hand and threw it right at Zira, inflicting a burning pain on her.

-"W-w…what is that?" Zira whispered.

-"YOU CAN TALK!" Quorra kept shouting at her. "That means you can answer all of my questions. I bet you remember this substance. I know what happened inside the Grid, Zira. I know how you got out!"

As she saw no response from Zira, she threw more liquid towards Zira.

-"I'm not telling you anything." Zira whispered back.

-"Oh… after what you've done to Joseph? I'm gonna get your answers out. The fact that you're an ISO won't make me doubt in killing you." Quorra threatened her.

-"I need your energy! I NEED TO LIVE! SURVIVOR'S INSTINCT!" Zira told her.

-"YOU DIDN'T NEED TO KILL JOSEPH TO GET SOME FUCKING ENERGY!" Quorra shouted irately. "End of line, Zira. For you."

-"He's not dead." Zira said.

-"Don't try to justify yourself. It won't save you." Quorra smiled, thirsty of revenge.

-"You'll feel horrible when you realize that you killed me over nothing. You'll be miserable!" Zira shouted.

Suddenly, Zira sprinted towards me and placed her hand over my back again.

-"DON'T HURT HIM ANYMORE!" Quorra screamed.

She threw the whole infected water to Zira, inflicting an unbearable pain in her, but she didn't harm me. Instead, she revived me, uncompressing my lungs.

I woke up.

-"Joseph! Joseph? Can you hear me?" Quorra asked.

-"Yeah… is she dead?" I asked back.

-"Not yet." She said. "She's burning."

-"NO!" I shouted. "Bring me a towel… some water… something!"

-"What? She kind-of killed you and now you're trying to save her?" Quorra asked, confused.

-"I know it's weird and I appreciate your help but we need her." I told her.

-"For what?" Quorra asked.

-"Listen, we're facing the people that have been controlling the world's economy for years, that have been controlling people's lives even since before democracy, in their own benefit, and I'm sure we're gonna need all the help that we can get. She can help us." I said.

Quorra was about to leave the room, frustrated, but I stopped her.

-"Hey… she might be an ISO, but she's not you. Her name is not Quorra, she's not as lovely as you are, and she may even look somehow like you but she's NOT you."

Quorra looked at me in the eyes.

-"Anything can happen to her and, sure, I will feel bad that I lost one of my people but I wouldn't cry, but if anything happens to you I might even get to the point of committing suicide. I wouldn't take the fact of losing you, not even for a minute." I told her.

Her eyes were in tears as she hugged me.

-"If anything happens to me, don't commit suicide, just keep fighting… for me." Quorra whispered.

Zira was coughing, trying to contain the pain from the burns that the poison did to her. The poison was taken directly from the Sea of Simulation, the very same poison that burned her once.

-"I promise." I told Quorra.

-"We gotta save somebody." She said, looking at Zira.

We took Zira into a surgery bed, sedated her and proceeded into her augmentation.

-"This, Joseph, is how it seemed when I performed the surgery to you." Quorra told me.

-"She has very severe burn spots all around her body. I'll make the substance evaporate…hold." Quorra said as she picked up a high-temperature substance remover. It evaporated the toxins on Zira's skin. "Get your gas masks on. Make sure they're clean."

We picked up our gas masks and went back to the surgery.

-"Easy, Zira… we got you." I said.

Quorra opened Zira's limbs and examined the interior. The ligaments and muscles also suffered from burns.

-"The toxins got right inside her. They burned her interior!" Quorra gasped.

She touched the burn spots.

-"Can we renew the tissue?" I asked.

-"No. We have to remove it… replace it with something better." She said.

-"You did the same thing to me?" I asked her.

-"Yeah. I replaced a lot of muscles in your body." Quorra said.

Quorra handed me Zira's dead tissues.

-"Here… put them on the tray." She said.

-"Why is her blood… lighter than normal?" I asked.

-"The toxins dissolved in her blood but… I don't understand, why didn't it kill her if the toxins had basically infected her heart?" Quorra asked.

-"Maybe she ran lucky." I suggested.

-"Or her body adapted itself to the toxins. She really wants to survive." Quorra said.

Quorra and I removed Zira's infected limbs and replaced them with new ones compatible with her ISO parts.

-"She has severe hematomas all over her back." Quorra pointed out.

-"…She was tortured?" I asked.

-"Apparently…" She answered.

Suddenly, the room's lights turned off and white circuitry began to run all over the floor and the ceiling.

-"What happened?" I asked.

-"Sometimes, a lot of light may damage an ISO's eyes when performing a surgery." She explained. "Not during normal times but in surgeries because the eye isn't connected into anything that powers up the retina, which in our eyes, it's kind of delicate, as I said, only when it's out of its body… not during normal performance."

Quorra examined Zira's eyes deeply.

-"My God. I bet she sustained a lot of pain when the toxins reached her eyes. I'm feeling sorry for her." She gasped. "How could she even see?"

Quorra replaced her eyes with new, enhanced eyes.

I brought a set of recently clean strong limbs that fitted Zira perfectly.

-"Her legs… her arms… they were almost as good as dead." She said.

I saw Zira's limbs inside a box. The insides were yellow, oozing a cyan substance.

-"My God… is that the toxin?" I asked.

-"Yeah, combined with Zira's semi-human fluids." Quorra said.

-"I wonder how can she possess people? I mean, it seems physically impossible, don't you think?" I asked.

-"As I can see, her body can transform into an extremely thin vapor that can get inside the skin's pores easily and her brain can merge itself with another person's brain, giving her the ability of controlling a body." Quorra explained.

-"How can that be possible?" I asked.

-"Her body can produce a very high amount of body heat so quickly to the point that the human tissue won't pass through the liquid state of matter and will immediately jump into being evaporated. Her cells will stay close to others. She merges inside another body and her cells attach to the ones from the other body, controlling them entirely." Quorra explained.

-"And you know all that because…?" I asked.

Quorra carefully drilled into Zira's head and manipulated her brain with a blue-glowing thin pick.

-"Look carefully." She said.

Zira became a very thin cloud of vapor that was barely visible when close to her, then she returned back to normal. Quorra touched certain parts of her brain that triggered that response.

-"She was born with this. We can't replace it. It can be useful, though." Quorra suggested "Now that I've drilled the hole, I'll make a few changes here that can benefit her augmentations."

-"You're not gonna erase her mind, are you?" I asked.

-"…We're not the government. We don't mess with people's minds like that. She might hate us but she must stay true to herself and her beliefs." She said.

Quorra carefully injected several substances which contained natural brain chemicals, altered to match Zira's brain activity and even enhance it.

-"You're admirable, Q." I complimented.

-"Thank you." She replied. "Now… here comes the hard part."

Quorra pointed at Zira's torso. She cut her chest open to reveal her heart. Everything was infected.

-"My God… she's burned even from the inside." I gasped.

-"What do you do to an infected computer?" Quorra asked.

-"You… format it?" I said, doubting.

-"Exactly. We'll reformat all cells in Zira's torso, except her heart. We'll give her a new, way more powerful heart than the one she has." She explained.

-"Did…did you change mine when you operated me?" I asked.

-"No. I didn't even change mine. They adapted fine with the augmentations. We don't need new hearts but Zira needs a new one urgently." Quorra said.

-"You know, the suit is way more than just nanofibers and chips. It also regulates chemicals in your body. Hormones and most importantly neurotransmitters like endorphins and serotonin are either boosted or decreased at the user's will." Quorra explained.

Suddenly, when Quorra 'Formatted' Zira with an intravenous injection of a cell-repairing liquid, she flatlined and we heard the scary, infinite beep sound of the heart monitor.

-"Come on, Zira… stay with us." I said.

-"Easy… I can handle it." Quorra said.

She gently slid her finger across Zira's heart, then she took a small syringe with a blue liquid and inserted it into Zira's heart, carefully.

-"Just hold on." Quorra whispered.

Then she took a defibrillator unit and shocked Zira, successfully reviving her.

-"What did you injected her?" I asked.

-"Water, with a little heat-containing liquid." Quorra answered.

-"That could've killed her!" I said.

-"Her cells have a different way of operating." Quorra explained. "The electric shock ran all the way through her heart, reactivating her cells."

-"Her cells operate with electricity?" I asked.

-"The heat the shock delivers, along with the 'heat-containing' substance is what brought the cells back up. These cells require a great amount of heat to get restored. Oh, and we won't need another heart for Zira." Quorra said. "Hold, take a look at this."

Quorra applied a gel around Zira's chest opening and began to seal.

-"This substance makes cells join and reproduce, and outside you see it as flesh joining and getting restored back to normal. No scars." Quorra demonstrated and she also sealed Zira's head.

-"…and… all this was developed in a year?" I asked. "…By…by YOU?"

-"No. It was always here, but people never realized how they could combine different chemicals to make all of this possible, or maybe they knew but they did not want to reveal the secret." Quorra suggested.

-"Why?" I wondered.

-"Money." She answered. "The more they make people dependant on medicine, the more money they get. Humanity is cruel, I knew that since I discovered their real intentions. No offense, Joseph, I'm not generalizing."

-"Don't worry. You're totally right. I just can't believe people actually kept all these secrets from us, even if it cost our lives, they kept hiding such secret just for pieces of paper and metal they call 'money'." I said, disappointed of humanity itself.

-"Hey. Not all humans are bad. You, for example, are actually doing something to solve all of these problems around the globe. Listen, don't blame EVERYBODY, and blame the ones that deserve to be blamed. Never generalize." Quorra said.

-"Thank you. I'm tired of keeping my opinion to myself, afraid that people might not like what I think." I told her.

-"Hey, always remember, that no matter what you tell me, if I'm ugly, if I'm lousy, noisy, or anything… just tell me. People tend to say that, 'Just tell me', but they rarely mean it when it comes to hearing the truth. They begin to whine like little babies. I've seen those cases." Quorra told me. "… but seriously, anything… you can tell me and we can discuss it."

-"Thank you." I told her.

-"Anytime." She answered.

Quorra brought Zira's lightsuit, now ready for use. We carefully woke her up, removing all sedatives. She seemed sleepy.

-"Easy, just walk carefully." I told Zira.

We kept her on her feet and placed her lightsuit on.

-"Look." Quorra said as she pointed at Zira's back.

-"The suit enters through your skin, merging with your body, beginning with your spinal cord. Once it merges with it completely, it makes itself capable of following orders from your brain depending on its evolution. For example, if your suit evolves enough to develop an impermeable shield…"

Quorra poured a small amount of the Sea of Simulation toxin into her hand and nothing happened to her.

-"…Then you can always activate that function whenever you want. It detects when you want something. If you want a shield, the suit will luckily provide it, but trust me, the suit may look unlimited, but it's not. Everything has resources, no matter where they're gathered from." She explained.

-"Whoa… You truly developed a huge piece of technology here." I said.

-"Look." She gasped.

Zira's suit was now merging with her. Her circuitry was dark purple.

-"Her shields are active, her suit is now 100% merged into her spinal cord." Quorra said. "We have to give her another run. Get her back on the surgery bed."

Quorra activated a surgeon robot programmed for the suit's installation.

-"Remember him, Joseph?" Quorra recalled. "He performed part of the surgery of your suit, and fully performed my surgery."

It was a bunch of robotic arms hanging from the roof. It seemed to clean itself by burning all bacteria on its ends with extreme heat and then cool out without damaging itself.

Zira was sedated again but she could feel the robot stinging her.

-"AAAAARRGHHHH!" Zira screamed.

I watched as the robot merged the suit into her by stinging her 'delicately'. It also manipulated a magnetic liquid inside her that altered some of her brain functions to develop quickly. Zira was now ready and the robot confirmed a good status.

We waited. A while later, Zira woke up, showing no harm. Her eyes were still yellow.

-"Why are her eyes the same?" I asked, confused.

-"The bright color allows her to quickly develop a highly detailed night-vision." She explained. "…Also, I like the way her eyes look."

-"Something's missing." I pointed out.

-"This." Quorra brought out a lightdisc for her and attached it on her back.

Zira stood up.

-"Where am I?" She mumbled.

-"Welcome to the team, Z." I greeted her. "You will be of great help."


	13. Episode 13: Roots

During Spring 2012, DAYS after Quorra met with me for the first time, several tapes were recorded to save information from us in case something happened and if this information was necessary.

Play

At my apartment's room, in Los Angeles, California. We sat around a table to talk while being recorded by Quorra's camera.

-"Joseph, right?" Quorra asked.

-"Yeah." I answered.

-"Any reason why won't you reveal your last name?" She asked.

-"It's confidential, and I can be put into risk if I do so, even in this recording." I explained.

-"It's alright. Now let's get to know each other. Do you know why Sam Flynn brought me specifically to you?" She asked.

I didn't answer.

-"Joseph?" She persisted.

-"I… I used to go to the arcade a lot when I was little." I answered.

-"Don't lie to me. The arcade has been closed for a long time before you were born and how is your presence there has to do with Sam's decision to bring me to you?" Quorra asked.

I succumbed to Quorra's persistence instantly.

-"My…My dad knew Flynn. He worked with him with the Shiva laser. Now you know why I don't want to reveal my last name. My dad was involved with the development of the laser. He knows a lot of things about digitization. Flynn and my dad were very close co-workers at ENCOM." I confessed.

-"Was your dad's name James Sco…?" Quorra said and I interrupted.

-"NO…don't… say…it." I told her.

-"Okay. I respect your privacy. So… is this his name?" Quorra asked as she showed me the paper with his name and record.

-"Yes." I answered.

-"Kevin told my dad about the ISOs… and he used to tell me stories about you, your great intelligence, how you developed a civilization: ISO city. He called your race 'digital angels'. He became obsessed with you until Kevin Flynn's disappearance. He mourned Flynn, thinking he was dead." I explained.

-"So you knew about me before all of this?" Quorra asked.

-"I did… I never realized how beau… never mind." I stopped.

-"I'll be straight to you. You may feel pressured but I will be honest. Kevin Flynn sent me with you. I told Sam what he had told me, a bit before reaching the portal, Kevin told me about you and that you were ready to help me change the world." Quorra explained.

-"But…why me? I'm just a 17-year-old boy." I told her. "I'm not a potential hero."

-"You never know if you could be a hero, until the end." She said. "Kevin told me that just like your father, you are capable of protecting an ISO like a treasure."

-"Yeah. My dad told me that they can change the world. What did he mean with that?" I asked.

-"We possess many knowledge about science, medicine and other topics of interest for humanity, but what makes us able to really change the world is that we know further than what humans do." She explained. "We can revolutionize the…"

-"You know that the government will be willing to take those discoveries and inventions from you, right?" I told her.

-"Yeah. They wanted to take me for a reason, that's why I refuse spreading my knowledge to the people with such government. My knowledge and capabilities could be used against the population… even to create a dystopia!" Quorra said. "…but we can fight to free the people, but we have to be patient. Never rush things."

-"I just want to recall something you said right now. Kevin Flynn told you about me, right?" I asked.

-"Yeah. Why?" Quorra asked back.

-"Did he explained why… well… I'm not whining or anything. Actually I'm grateful but… Why me?" I asked Quorra.

-"He never explained. He said that I will know the reason later and that even if I tried to avoid you, I would end up with you. Strange, but he might be right." Quorra explained. "He said that you had some basic knowledge about ISOs and that your will to change the world would help our mission. You've always dreamed about that, haven't you? Since you were little."

-"Yes. Since I was little." I said.

-"I think Kevin really picked a good person." Quorra complimented me.

-"Best things in life come unexpected, I guess." I smiled.

-"May I ask how did you get my address?" I asked.

-"We traced your computer's IP." She answered.

-"And how did you get that?" I asked her.

-"Sam managed to trace one of your messages. If you had a social network it would've been a little easier but… we don't need it anymore." She explained.

-"I won't have a Facebook ever again." I said.

-"Why do you say so?" Quorra wondered.

-"It's a waste of time and I actually feel better without it. I actually feel free." I answered.

-"You're seriously a lucky guy. Many other teens out there have one, basically, almost the entire world. You're lucky, or maybe your own mind is trying to save you." Quorra said.

-"What does that mean?" I asked.

-"Let's say you would've kept your account. We would've been exposed for a very good time. You know, anyone can trace that information as long as it's stored in a server." She said.

I clapped my hands on the desk once, with happiness, in approval of Quorra's affirmation.

-"Exactly! You know why, because information becomes public no matter how much you set your privacy settings. The only thing they achieve with those settings is protecting their accounts from OTHER accounts, not from other people." I explained.

-"Yeah. People will obviously not see the account with another Facebook because it's the same security protocols, but they can use a better program to breach those protocols and that Facebook won't even recognize, or even gain access to the servers." Quorra explained further.

-"You do get it. Since I knew the risks, I began to hate all social networks. Teens keep using them to express their feelings and tell gossip while they're actually revealing themselves to everybody. It's alright... to not hide anything, but it might eventually strike back at a point." I said. "Teens won't even talk a lot anymore… they'll just say 'I'll tell you on Facebook.' Gosh. My people are being brainwashed into giving out their information."

-"Hey. Maybe it's just a conspiracy theory, but in my opinion, I think you're right. Honestly I don't think the moderators can handle security breaches as they say, not because of laziness but because it's really hard to identify something that you can't physically see, something that can clone itself, something that can crash a whole system." Quorra explained referring to viruses and hacking programs.

-"Teens are teens. They can't see reality until it hits them hard." I muttered.

-"Yeah, but life has taught you how to fight by hitting you, that way, you can hit it back harder and one day, you'll hit it back and it'll be proud of you, knowing that his student has learned from it. Life is a master, and we're its students." Quorra told me.

-"Wow." I gasped, amazed at Quorra's words. "How do you know?"

-"Kevin Flynn once told me." She said. "Besides, the fact that I lived in the Grid or that I'm an ISO doesn't mean that I don't have a life like you humans do. Actually, Humans and ISOs have very much in common. We are able to create societies. We are able to collectively think and generate results from ideas just like you humans do!"

-"Unluckily, Humans rarely put those abilities into practice." I muttered.

-"Hey, why do you hate your kind so much?" She inquired.

-"Because they're fighting, EVERYWHERE! If they're not punching and killing themselves in real life, they're insulting each other via internet! You know what's worse? Internet shows people how they really behave. In real life, they won't go insulting everything because they're afraid to get criticized. Society will eat them alive if they express their opinion against something, but in the Internet? No. Everyone is free to express their opinion, but once you take out that mask of anonymity, you're vulnerable and if you express yourself once more, YOU'RE… SCREEEWWWWEEED!" I shouted in a very maniacal way.

Quorra stood up from her chair and slowly walked at me.

-"Joseph, I need you to calm down. You're unstable right now." She warned me.

-"HOW CAN I CALM DOWN? I HATE MY RACE! I HATE HUMANS! I HATE THESE ANIMA…" I shouted but interrupted by Quorra, who suddenly hugged me.

…But my anger made me force myself away from her so she recurred to another solution: a kiss.

She kissed me for a couple of seconds. That left me in shock.

-"I'm… I'm sorry if I… I'm sorry for that. I could've punched you but I don't want you to look at me as a bad person." She explained nervously. "Uh… kisses are known to reduce stress immediately. That's why I did it."

-"Thank you." I gasped.

-"Just… let me know if you're calm already." She said.

-"Yeah, I'm… I'm calm." I confirmed.

-"Listen, I know you hate your kind for several reasons but you have to understand that you can judge the whole humanity for the mistakes of few humans." Quorra said. "You have to know that not everything is good and evil. Some people do it for good, some for evil purposes but sometimes they do it because they need to survive. Like thieves who only steal food and clothing. They don't want to harm, they want to survive to the harsh conditions of the outside."

-"You're right." I whispered. "I'm…I'm sorry if I freaked out."

-"It's okay. It's just a lack of serotonin in your body." Quorra explained.

-"Serotonin?" I asked.

-"Commonly known for keeping a person in a good mood. If you want to stay happy, consume anything that has tryptophan." Quorra advised me.

-"Yeah. I know what it is. You read A LOT of books in the Grid, didn't you?" I told her.

-"Exactly." She smiled. "Do you know that you made a good thing by keeping yourself private?"

-"Yes. People know less about me. How is that good?" I asked.

-"They won't know your weaknesses, your soft spots." Quorra said. "You know that the information you posted in your account was more than just words? You basically drew a map of your weaknesses to everyone."

-"I screwed up." I said, with regret.

-"No. Luckily for you, somebody was able to access the servers and permanently burn all of your information." Quorra said.

-"You did it?" I asked.

-"Yeah. It was easy. They had security, but I got past it successfully burned the data." She explained.

-"You know… Quorra. You know about a lot of stuff, right?" I asked.

-"Uhh… sure. Everybody does. Why?" She asked.

-"What is the name of the secret government program that involved psychological manipulation, mind control techniques?" I asked.

-"MK Ultra." She answered.

-"You have knowledge on conspiracy theories." I said.

-"Yeah. Why?" She asked.

-"Why does the government want you?" I asked her.

-"I don't know, but they were desperate. Somehow, Sam was able to get me here without being followed. We had to go around the entire city, through alleyways and many other places that just made them lose track of us." Quorra explained.

-"What happened, exactly?" I asked her.

-"Well. We were walking around Echo Park. Suddenly a guy, normal-looking, approached us with a very nervous look and asked me if I knew anything about medicine. I said I did and told me to follow him to a black van because his friend was dying but they were actually people from the government. They wore black suits and apparently they were waiting for me. Sam pulled me away and we ran to his motorcycle and left. They chased us until they finally crashed. Then we went back to Sam's home, took some stuff and quickly made it to you." She explained.

-"Wow. They weren't armed or anything?" I asked.

-"They had guns." She recalled.

-"They thought you were an easy catch." I said. "Maybe they want you for something big."

-"Such as?" I asked.

-"I don't know but if they want your energy with such desperation…" I said.

-"I don't think they only want my energy. They know about my knowledge." Quorra explained. "One of the guys in the van called me 'brain girl'".

-"They want you to help them." I speculated.

-"With what?" She asked.

-"I'm not sure." I answered. "Did you ever mess with top secret government stuff?"

-"I never did but now I think I'm going there. If I'm part of their plan, maybe I should know what they want with me." She said.

-"Listen, whatever they're trying, I'm not letting them put a hand on you, even if I have to tear this country apart." I comforted her.

-"Thank you, Joseph. You're really sweet now that I'm getting to know you." She smiled.

-"Yeah. I bet Sam is better." I said.

-"What do you mean by that?" She asked.

-"I know that you love Sam." I told her.

-"Well, I do but as my big brother, not as a love interest." She cleared.

-"What? …but he saved you from the Grid." I gasped.

-"…and I TRULY owe him my life for getting me out of there and for giving me the opportunity to look at the beautiful sun, but I just can't feel that kind of love for him, besides, he feels the same about me. He even told me." She explained. "He sees me more like her little sister, and I look at him like my big brother, like family."

-"Wow." I gasped.

-"That doesn't mean I can't feel love." She smiled. "Sam is a great person, though."

-"I know. He's awesome." I said. "I met him when he was still at college but I was there just to study for a while, you know… tutorials. During free times, I went to the computer room, and Sam was always there. He was usually uploading codes up to a USB device. He was kind of a loner but he treated me like a good friend. He trusted me just as I trusted him. I basically became his best friend until I left tutorials. I said goodbye to him and I left."

-"So you do know him?" She asked.

-"Yeah, even before you told him to bring you to me." I clarified.

After a silence, Quorra asked me something.

-"Joseph. I've been having a question in my mind. Who is exactly Ram?" She asked.

-"I don't know. Why?" I asked back.

-"Kevin Flynn told me that if things went wrong, to hold tight to this shard. He said: 'Ram will be of great help'." Quorra said as she showed me a blue-glowing semi-digital shard.

The camera began to distort as the shard glowed, until it shut down.

END OF LINE.

2012. Right after Zira's augmentation surgery.

Quorra took the very same shard while she was on top of the now evacuated ENCOM Tower. The whole city of Los Angeles was at war, with riots on the streets and police forces killing protestors. Suddenly, 10 giant mortar rounds emerged from the ocean, striking the city of Los Angeles. Massive amounts of U.S. Marine helicopters were on the air but they were apparently shooting each other.

-"We're not alone." Quorra whispered to herself as she smiled.


	14. Episode 14: Program Shower

After Zira's augmentation, she was now recovered from her injuries despite a few mutations that happened in her DNA. Her energy loss and desire to consume energy from other bodies was now fixed but her energy was somewhat unstable, yet it could be used to overload devices.

However, we were inside the lab.

-"Joseph, Zira… gear up and meet me on top of the tower in a few minutes." Quorra ordered.

-"Okay." Zira and I said.

-"Oh, and Z, please… don't cause any trouble. If you need something just tell us." She said.

-"…Okay." She whispered.

Quorra left to the elevator, carrying 2 lightdiscs and her sword. I stayed with Zira to gear up.

-"Hey. We started off with the wrong foot. My… my name's Joseph." I told her.

-"Yeah, I know your name already." She said in a very grim tone.

-"Hey, we're a team now!" I said.

-"... and that means that you have to bother me around?" She arrogantly asked.

-"If that means helping you, I will. Listen, we have to stay together, if not, we're gonna get killed. I wouldn't have let you consume Quorra. You would've let them kill us!" I shouted.

-"Who?" Zira asked.

-"The Ghost Company. A secret society that has been around us for decades controlling the government. They want Quorra, and if we don't keep her alive, and with us, they're gonna blow up the entire humanity. If we want them dead, we gotta keep Quorra alive and away from them." I explained to Zira.

She stared at me with her yellow eyes.

-"You're an ISO. Quorra is from your same race. Don't do this for me if you don't want to but do it for her and for humanity. Come on, Z. You're not evil. Your race isn't evil." I persuaded her.

-"Tell me something I don't know… Just give me a rifle." She said, agreeing with me.

I gave her a rifle from the armory as I took one for me, then I hugged her. She didn't hug me back.

-"You came out alive for a reason, Z. Always remember that." I told her.

She stepped into the elevator and I went after her. We ascended to the ENCOM Tower's roof and saw a lightjet ready to take off, but on the skies, we saw something that got a shiver down our spines.

The skies were dark because of the smoke from the fires all over Los Angeles, buildings were destroyed, people being evacuated by what were apparently a Resistance group, mortars came off the ocean and we saw U.S. Marine Seaknight helicopters gunning down each other. Apparently the Marines were now divided, but who were the friendlies?

-"Okay, we're heading to that U.S. Marine fleet and see who's our enemy and who's our friend! Alright?" Quorra shouted as the sound of the lightjet's turbines drowned our voices.

-"Got it!" I said.

We got inside the lightjet, which was able to hold up to 3 passengers and a gunner.

We flew over Los Angeles. I saw how vicious battles ensued at the streets. Explosions from detonators and grenades, bullets flying away, it was all chaos among the streets. We flew until we reached the U.S. Marine fleet, which consisted of 17 choppers, from its right side as it was being engaged in battle.

I saw a Seaknight's windows and saw soldiers staring at us.

-"Friendlies?" I asked Quorra nervously.

-"Guys! Look who's here!" A U.S. Marine shouted

-"The cavalry has arrived!" Another U.S. Marine cheered.

Suddenly, all marines were cheering at us. Apparently they were allied to us.

-"This is Quorra, I'm intercepting your signal, can anybody in that chopper hear me? Over." She asked.

-"This is Captain Landers! We read you and we're more than glad to have you here!" The captain responded with relief.

-"Who's the enemy?" Quorra asked.

-"Corrupt U.S. Marines working for the traitor government. We heard it all and they're trying to kill us because of that." The Captain explained.

-"We'll handle it, out." Quorra confirmed.

She flew over to the other side of the fleet, getting us behind the Corrupted Marines.

-"Take 'em down, Joseph!" Quorra ordered. "Missile away!"

Quorra fired 2 missiles while I fired the turret against the enemy helicopters. We were able to destroy 2 choppers and left 1 torn apart which later became unstable and went down. 4 helicopters remained but the allied Marines shot down one of them with rockets, then, as Quorra flew over the choppers I gunned down another one while Quorra concentrated missiles to the last helicopter, taking them both down. There were 10 friendly helicopters in total. We sustained some damage due to bullets.

-"Everyone okay?" Quorra asked.

-"Just some cracks on the windows. Other than that, we're okay." I verified. "Zira?"

-"I'm fine here." She confirmed.

-"Ma'am, we have a base set up at the Santa Monica Airport." Captain Landers said.

-"We'll meet you there, out." Quorra said.

-"Looks like the U.S. Marines were torn apart. Machines VS Marines with families." I said.

Suddenly, another wave of mortars rose from the ocean.

-"Zira, switch places with Joseph and fire at every mortar round you see before it lands." Quorra ordered.

-"On it." She said as she got into the lightjet's turret.

-"What's going on, Q?" I asked her.

-"Sit back and enjoy the show." She winked.

Quorra boosted up to full speed, releasing a light ribbon off the jet's turbines similar to the ones in the Grid.

Quorra used the light ribbons to destroy the mortar rounds. We could feel the shockwaves spread over the air as they exploded, creating circles of smoke, while the light ribbon trails remained on the air for a while, until they dissipated as vapor. The skies had trails of smoke everywhere.

The other soldiers were already far from the striking positions, heading to the Santa Monica Airport.

Quorra suddenly saw a mortar heading directly to a group of evacuees running away from the area.

-"Take the lead!" Quorra told me as she switched places with me.

-"Where are you going?" I asked her.

She didn't answer and opened the cockpit, and suddenly, she jumped off the lightjet.

-"QUORRA?" I shouted.

She closed her eyes and rezzed up an individual light-jet. She boosted quickly towards the last mortar, which was heading towards the civilians.

-"Easy… easy." She mumbled.

Quorra ejected herself out of the lightjet, and used her shields to land into a street. The jet crashed with the mortar, destroying it and saving the people.

-"Quorra…" I whispered, worried but hoping that she was okay.

I landed on the street where she landed. People were surrounding her.

-"Who is she?" People murmured. "I don't think she's alive."

I rushed among the people towards Quorra. Zira followed me. All eyes were on us.

-"Quorra, wake up." I told her as I shook her head gently.

She opened her eyes slowly.

-"Did I save them?" She asked.

I smiled with relief.

-"Yeah. Hahaha. You did some crazy stunt and saved all of these guys." I smiled.

-"Haha. Ugh. You better get used to it, J. I don't do this only once in a lifetime." She laughed.

I helped her get on her feet. She was okay.

-"I'm alright. I just got a hard landing." She said as she stretched up.

Everyone looked at us, surprised, wondering who we are. They were about 90 people.

-"We gotta get them to a safe place." Quorra told me.

-"I think the authorities will handle this." I said, trying to make Quorra and Zira focus on the main objective.

-"Which authorities? The guys who betrayed their own U.S. Marines? I guess that leaves us with NO authorities other than the rebel Marines who fought on our side, but they're too far from us." Zira told me.

-"I guess we're the evac team." Quorra said. "Alright, everybody line up and keep up the pace. If anybody needs help, you tell us. Zira, I'm gonna need you to provide overwatch from the lightjet. Joseph, you're with me."

-"Got it, Q." I acknowledged.

Zira got into the lightjet and flew up.

-"Zira here, providing overwatch." She confirmed.

-"Copy, Z." Quorra received.

-"Okay, we're moving! Joseph, Cover the left, I'll be on the front." Quorra ordered.

-"If you see any open buildings while a firefight starts, get into any buildings you can and lay low." I advised.

Quorra approached me.

-"Joseph, we're moving up front. The airport is about 600 meters from here." She said. "You alright?"

-"Yeah. It's just that I haven't been in some kind of post-apocalyptic environment." I said.

-"Oh come on, television networks are still operational, news channels are still broadcasting…" She listed.

-"Yeah but until when?" I said, discouraged.

-"Hey. We're gonna be okay, alright? We have part of the U.S. Army with us." Quorra soothed me.

-"Yeah..." I whispered.

-"We'll be fine. Be calm." Quorra soothed me with a kiss and hugged me tight.

We walked for miles. The streets were silent… until I almost fell with…

-"TRIPWIRE!" I shouted.

-"Stand back! Stand back!" A man ordered.

Quorra approached it and got her disc out.

-"Easy… easy…" She murmured. "Everyone stay back."

She slowly sliced the tripwire out.

-"Don't you have to deactivate the bomb before?" I nervously asked.

She looked at me directly in the eyes.

-"Yes." She whispered and hugged me quickly, creating a shield as the bomb's explosion nearly burned us.

The smoke dissipated and we were almost intact, but Quorra fell to the ground unconscious.

-"Q? Quorra? What happened?" I shouted. "Z… something happened to Quorra."

I began to think about what to do. Suddenly, various soldiers in black camo suits began to fire at us. Some people were shot down but most of the group survived and took cover inside empty stores. I took cover behind a store.

-"Z, I want you to take her to where she was heading." I said.

-"The airport?" She asked.

-"Yes. Take her. Please." I ordered desperately.

Zira landed and took Quorra while I covered her, then she left, taking her to the Santa Monica Airport.

The soldiers aimed at the lightjet but their shots didn't damage it severely.

I fired at the soldiers with my rifle and threw my lightdisc to get some time to reload, and then I took it back and kept firing, until there was only one remaining. I flanked him and punched him until he was neutralized. I checked my surroundings to see if one of them remained.

-"Clear!" I said.

Everyone came out, worried.

-"Where's the girl?" A woman asked.

-"She's in a better place now." I said.

-"She's dead?" She asked with concern.

-"If that's what you call the Santa Monica Airport, then yeah, she's in heaven." I answered sarcastically.

We kept walking.

-"Watch the sides." I advised.

-"So… where are you from? This planet?" A girl asked.

-"Yeah. Why?" I asked.

-"You seem human but… you're, like…more than human." She said.

-"Yeah, I kind of noticed that in the last days." I told her.

Meanwhile at the Santa Monica Airport, Zira arrived, carrying Quorra on her arms.

-"You made it." A soldier said. "I'm Private First Class James Matthews."

Zira looked around.

-"What happened to her?" He asked, referring to Quorra.

-"I don't know." She answered.

Private Henderson escorted Zira along with Quorra into the hangar where there were small rooms where they could rest. Captain Landers approached her.

-"Glad you made it." He told her.

She didn't answer.

-"Where's the other guy?" He asked.

Zira looked at him, enraged and grabbed his neck slamming his back against the wall.

-"You're gonna tell me if this is a real resistance group and not just a scam." Zira demanded.

-"W-what are you talking about? We're a real resistance group!" Landers declared.

-"Only one way to find out." Zira whispered.

She possessed Captain Landers's body and analyzed his mind. He was trying to resist Zira but he couldn't. Within 2 minutes, she had him in her power, and then she went out of his body, weakening him for a while. He recovered and tried to punch Zira but she stopped him.

-"I had to make sure. Don't even try to kill me because if you do, this whole base will blow up along with your men." She threatened. "I can be very volatile sometimes."

-"Just… don't do that again." Landers said.

-"No problem." Zira answered. "Joseph is still in the city."

-"What?" He gasped.

-"What?" Zira asked back.

-"They're gonna skin him alive in there. If the government gets their hands on him, not only he's dead, but we'll all be." He said. "We need to know where he is right now."

-"I really can't name the place. There were many stores." Zira described. "Can't you just look for a guy with a glowing suit?"

-"We'll bring him back." Landers promised as he left. "Squad, into the chopper, let's go, let's go!"

Landers' squad followed him into a Sea Knight helicopter.

Meanwhile in the city…

-"Keep moving!" I said.

Suddenly we heard bombs.

-"Get into the houses! Move! Move!" I ordered the people.

-"What's happening?" They asked.

I saw Marine helicopters above us.

Meanwhile, in the helicopters.

-"Crenshaw, Anders, you'll go with Faraday and Manning. Evers and Winston you're with me." Landers commanded.

-"Guys! Look!" Anders shouted.

It seemed like a meteor shower, like if the stars were all falling on Earth. Like an apocalypse. Many spheres of fire were coming down violently to the surface. One of them completely destroyed the City Hall. Trails of blue, red and green "glowy" smoke were left on the air.

-"Incoming!" Crenshaw warned.

He quickly walked backwards into the helicopter as the spherical drop pod almost hit the rear. He was able to see a person inside the sphere.

-"They're people…" Crenshaw gasped. "They're not mechanical. It's people coming down into the atmosphere."

While on the ground, I saw what looked like a program. It had a helmet and orange hexagon-shaped circuitry. It was a program… digitization was happening, again.

-"Everybody, take cover!" I shouted.

I fired at the program, ineffectively. I dropped my rifle and threw my lightdisc forward towards the program but he jumped and inserted his foot into the lightdisc, taking it without any harm or derezzion and when he landed, he destroyed the disc.

-"My God. Everybody stay in cover!" I ordered.

Suddenly, a helicopter's minigun fired at the program, physically and virtually destroying him. It was Landers and his squad.

-"Joseph? Get aboard! We gotta get back to base!" Landers said.

-"We need to get these people out of here!" I said.

-"We brought several evac groups! Come on!" Landers ordered.

I went for the program's body and my lightdisc, carrying it into the Seaknight helicopter.

Meanwhile, Quorra and Zira were at the Santa Monica Airport, holding position.

-"I'm getting really worried, Z. You know, about Joseph." Quorra said.

-"Why do you have to be attached to somebody else? Why do people have to be attached? Can't they just work alone?" Zira complained.

-"I'm sorry you look at it that way, Z, but if it weren't for us being together we would probably be dead, I would be captured by the government and Joseph would probably be on the run sooner or later." She said.

-"Maybe none of this would've happened." Zira said.

Quorra stood up and looked at her directly into her yellow eyes.

-"Yeah, maybe none of this would've happened but we would eventually be killed by the government with starvation, destruction of our economy, unemployment, and even extermination. These people are also secretly testing dangerous drugs in people, people that they consider expendable. They consider the whole human population as expendable except themselves. So if we wouldn't have done anything, this corrupt government would've been eating us alive by now." Quorra said. "Kevin Flynn said I could change the world, but how can I present my changes when the government only wants them for their own benefit. They would only steal my inventions to become higher than the people."

Zira, acknowledging she was wrong, did not reply and tried to leave the room but the door was locked.

-"Hey! Hey! The door is locked!" Zira shouted. "Open the door!"

Suddenly, Quorra spotted several soldiers outside the airport's hangar.

-"Who are they?" Zira asked.

-"FEMA" Quorra gasped with fear. "I hope he's fine. Joseph."


End file.
